I noticed someone had been looking at a post from February that mentioned this quote:
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means. — Robert Louis Stevenson
and when I went to see the post and quote, the quote box gave me this:
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. – Henry Miller
Part of the discussion about shootings (another one in Manhattan today) has to include the idea of not only recognition and treatment of mental illness and addressing fringe political beliefs, but also the idea of community.
As a community, a society, we don’t want shootings to happen (that’s scary to each of us) but more importantly we don’t want people to be suffering to the point where they are desperate and see no alternatives. If they are ill, we need to offer them assistance and appropriate treatment. If they are unemployed we need to help them get work, get training, keep going. We need as a society to make sure safety nets are in place to keep people fed and housed safely, and to be a part of the society they’re in. Not “those people” or “those wacko right-wing-nuts” but you fellow person who lives in this same place as me.
When people are so cut off from possibilities and hope, what are their options?
This is too big a problem for a single post. Talk amongst yourselves. What can we do?
