Reflections on Orlando

The odds of each of us being born at all are 1: 400,000,000,000,000. For those, like me, who aren’t adept at large numbers that’s one in four-hundred trillion. As if those odds aren’t mind blowing enough, there are some mathematicians who believe that to be a conservative number and is more accurately 1: 700,000,000,000 (one in seven-hundred trillion.) But why quibble about three-hundred trillion here, or there? To put this into perspective, your odds of being hit by lightning this calendar year are 1: 960,000 (one in nine-hundred- sixty thousand) and your odd of winning the Powerball (lottery) 1: 292,000,000 (one in two-hundred ninety-two million.) The odds of dying by electrocution are a mere 1: 1,000,000 (one in one million) and your chances of being hit by a car only 1: 47,273 (one in forty-seven thousand four hundred and seventy-three.)

So, why am I hitting you over the head with statistics? I wanted indisputable proof of the rarity and value of every single one the fifty lives that were violently taken away in Orlando last Sunday morning. Not just because I say human life has value, or society does, or the church, or some guy on the news does, but, because the odds of being born at all are so great we can’t deny our own value. So in case you didn’t get it, in this universe the chance that there is a you, at all, is one in four-hundred trillion. That number doesn’t change if your fat or thin, young or old, pretty or ugly, gay, straight, transgendered, Atheist, Christian, Muslim, Jew, brown, black, white, pink, crazy or sane, or anything else I failed to name. You are one in four-hundred trillion. 

Here’s the thing; it’s easy to blame. The trouble is, blame only functions to discharge pain and discomfort. Once the initial relief fades we’re left with a hangover of impotence, and fear, and even more anger and sorrow, and the cycle repeats. Blame cannot, does not, will never, solve or improve anything. I want you, if you can, to tweeze some mental space between fault and blame. There can be no doubt that the gunman is at fault here. He, and no one else, purchased a weapon and ammunition, got into his vehicle, drove to Pulse nightclub, and began shooting. The question I have to ask is, are Muslims really to blame? Is religion? How about gun laws or our current administration? Are they to blame? Fault lies with the individual or group who perpetrated the act of violence, blame is what WE do to discharge our anger, fear, and sorrow.

Blame feels really good, and it can even be used to create the illusion of solidarity. I could, and have, spent entire days crying, shaking, and pounding away at my keyboard, writing every single pain fueled word I could about everything I think is wrong with this world; every group and lawmaker who has contributed to this event, every social construct, race, religion, political party I could aim my pain and frustration at. And then, when I was emotionally spent, I reached for the top right hand side of my computer keyboard and pressed delete, because it does not serve anyone. It does not serve any of the fifty lives lost, the fifty-three people injured and fighting for their lives, nor their families, friends, and loved ones. It does not serve any of us, unless it is our intention to go on screaming, and doing nothing. The trouble with blame is, when we’re done screaming, shaking our fists, and decrying everyone under the sun, we’re still left with blood on our hands. So, like Lady Macbeth, we have to keep repeating the behavior, and getting the same unsatisfactory results. If you don’t know the story, here’s a hit, it doesn’t end well.

Before I go any further, let me state emphatically, I am just a dude, with a brain, and a keyboard. There are many things about the world, the law, legislation, politics, and the psychology of trauma, that I just do not, probably will not, ever understand. I have no earthly idea how we move on from this, I only know that move on is what we must do. So, I’m going to put my ideas out there anyway, because it’s not only a benefit of living in a free country, it’s our responsibility.

I don’t like that we’ve labeled this an act of terrorism. There is an element of terrorist acts that is deliberately anonymous, they are not concerned with who they kill, only that they kill as many people as possible, as visibly as possible. This man didn’t shoot up a church, a shopping mall, a school, a night club patronized by heterosexuals, or an all-night vegan gluten free deli. He went to well-known gay night club with the intent to kill, injure, and scare as many LGBT people as possible. That, is a hate crime. I’m not attempting to deny that terrorism is fueled by hate, but this was targeted towards a very specific group of people, not a broad spectrum of people. Make sense? Calling this an act of terrorism distracts attention away from the group that was targeted and only serves to drive the “us versus them” paradigm that we’ve been living under for far too long.

We, each of us, needs to stop buying into the idea that we can never be safe enough, secure enough, rich enough, thin enough, diligent enough, promoted enough, just, never enough. It’s called the culture of scarcity and it drives us to constantly look in our neighbor’s backyard to see if they have more than we do, or at least, more than we think they deserve. It feeds directly into the us versus them mentality, and validates whatever behavior is necessary to do and get more, even at the expense of the only planet we’ve got, and human lives. The culture of scarcity has trained us to be reactionary consumers, and not citizens. 

When we abandon the idea that there is never enough, we see that we can help mankind abroad and those struggling at home. We can have gun control, and responsible gun ownership. We can get to the mentally ill, and help them, before they take up arms against other humans. We can raise generations of kids without gang violence, drugs, addiction, starvation, and homelessness, because in a world where we are enough, no one is allowed to slip through the cracks. If we are enough, we can have our beliefs and hold respect for the beliefs, and non-beliefs, of others. We can extend our understanding to people who live, and love differently than we do. If we are enough, everyone can have equal rights without anyone’s rights being diminished. We can finally fulfill the idea this country was founded on, and live equal lives, with equal opportunities: one in four-hundred thousand.