Our brains abhor randomness and seek meaning.
Every tragedy brings hand ringing. Every tragedy brings people to the figurative Wailing Wall. Today it was the Washington Shipyard, last year it was Sandy Hook and Aurora and in years before that it was Blacksburg, Columbine, San Ysidro, Austin, and to the surprise of many Americans it also happened in Japan, Nepal, South Africa, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia.
Our brains abhor randomness and seek meaning.
So we seek to show a killer was driven by money losses, or a dispute about money. Or it was previous abuse or a desire for fame for the number of kills. Before that it was Glenn Beck, Islamaphobia, Grand Theft Auto, MySpace. Or it was bullying, drugs, infidelity, isolation.
It isn’t our guns, or our radio, or our video game, all of this is part of the big lie. The big lie being that we hold life sacred and that evil lives outside of us. It doesn’t, it is in each of us but held in check by the moral context we invest in, believe and hold to. In some people the moral check fails and evil overwhelms them. We can say it is insanity or mental illness because that sounds as satisfying as anything else and we can go back to online poker and Candy Crush and the NFL and hot wings because we don’t know anybody like that.
Our brains abhor randomness and seek meaning.
We don’t hold life as sacred as the hyperbole suggests. If we did there wouldn’t be the nonsense of corporations destroying life in Mexico, China, Sao Paulo. If we did we wouldn’t have 2,000 children go missing in the U.S. every day. If we did we wouldn’t talk about turning Iran into a sheet of glass. Yes individually each of us probably reveres life and finds the loss of it tragic, but even then our own language gives us away. After both the Japanese and Haitian earthquakes I heard dozens of people say we needed to stop sending aid there because we have homeless here, the logic escapes me. Yes we have homeless here, I’ve spoken to them, fed them and clothed them, but an American life is not more valuable than a Haitian life, I’m certain God doesn’t look down and see the lines we’ve created on the map. If society held life sacred as editorials like to suggest would there really be any homeless people anyway?
Our brains abhor randomness and seek meaning.
We pray, meditate, hug our kids tight and promise them there are no Boogey Men. Meanwhile the next one cradles his gun or stares at the letters page in the paper and his mind begins to see a world that doesn’t exist, except in his mind.
I believe there is a purpose to our existence, I believe in God and Jesus’ teachings are the foundation to my life, however that doesn’t mean I am right, it also does not mean that this is a just world and that Karma will come around and secure a place of justice to the man who savages the body and innocence of a 13 year old he once coached in basketball.
We live in a fallen world where lust and avarice and the yearning for power create a landscape where life is just another commodity and evil seeps into the crevices of our souls by our want.
Our brains abhor randomness and seek meaning.
So go create some meaning, hug your kids tight and dance with them in your socks to Elvis tonight. Hold your partner’s hand a little tighter when the roller coaster drops and let loose with a joyous scream the world can hear. Ignore the pundits and attention whores and don’t invest any meaning into what those with a radio or television pulpit say. Laugh, watch Looney Tunes, Abbott & Costello, Anchorman or even Dane Cook or Jeff Dunham, who cares laugh. Take a friend to lunch and call your folks and leap from the swing because the meaning of life is in what you make it, and if you say you hold life sacred, show it, mean it and don’t listen to those who don’t.