Heartlessness

The past couple of weeks have provided me much fodder/inspiration to write this post. 

First, #Folsom. You may or not have read about a 12 year old boy who had joined his high school cheerleading team. He loved it and the team loved him. He jumped, danced, sang, cheered and stood up for his school football team with pride. What made him stand out also was the fact that he was the only boy on the team. That made him special, special enough to be picked on and made fun of, to be bullied. He endured the harassment for a while till one day a few weeks ago he decided enough was enough. He took his own life.  

When I first read the news reports about Ronin Shimizu's passing, I could feel the onset of tears. The same thing happened just now when I wrote that last sentence in the first paragraph. When you hit your 30s, you sometimes think about potential, the whatifs in your own life. How life could be different, usually better or wealthier, if you had made a different decision or took a chance some time in the past. Your look at the years gone by and wonder at how great things could have been. Robbie Williams sang "Youth is wasted on the young. Before you know it, it's come and gone too soon." It's true. One can only have the luxury of doing this pity party when you're older. This kid was just 12 when he decided that the cruelty of his peers was just too much to bear. No age of youth to consider. I cannot imagine what his parents must be feeling. I think I would just cry all day. 

Words can hurt more than physical things because they have meaning. The sharp stabs of reason and doubt pierce both heart and soul, and worse still, they linger and fester and grow like a disease. The disease is psychological. It kills not the body but the spirit. If not nipped in the bud, it'll overcome and overwhelm, making it easier to slip over the edge. Just mere words. 

So crime and punishment. When someone posted the story on Facebook, I wrote in response that parents need to teach their kids that they should support others for being happy (as long as they're not hurting others), that unkind words can hurt, and most importantly, that they should stand up for others being bullied. Once we let things go, bullies think it's ok to carry on. Nip it in the bud. I added that the kids who bullied Ronin should go kneel at his parents' home on his birthday to ask for forgiveness. 

Second, #sydneyseige. We know what happened and how it went down. If you paid close attention to the Internet, you could pick out a few "outstanding" categories of thought. One tweeter wrote something like "Start the beheading already". Someone else wrote to the effect of letting Muslims into Australia was a bad idea, that this outcome was due. Someone else posted something to the effect of letting Muslims know there was pork in chocolate. (reference to Lindt cafe). 

Stunning eh. It's easy when you don't have to face the music for 140 characters one's posts on Twitter, consequences lost in the oceanic flood of messages. Mere words, designed to perhaps elicit more vitriol from the do-gooders. In this age, it's easy to come across violence. Kids are exposed to it from an early age, from TV, movies and video games. After all, they maybe become desensitized to the horror. How bloody was Spartacus the TV series? I watch The Walking Dead and that can get pretty gory. Remember that scene where the Sheriff bit the neck of the another bad guy to save his son? No zombies but real people. The episode started with him having blood all over his face, dripping down his mouth. I'd say it was cool. But really, where do we go from here? More blood curdling horror? How about horror in real life? That's what IS has done with its beheading videos. The Internet was the medium of choice. It's funny that these atrocities are things are used to happen all the time in the centuries past. What goes around comes around.   

So despite a scenario where people are in agony, stuck with an armed madmen in a confined space, people were egging the lunatic on. Or maybe they just wanted something horrific to play out, like it was a movie, not caring that these are real people with real families. Just entertainment broadcast to a screen near you. It's sad that we have become like this, and perhaps worse that there's no turning back. 

Third, #Pakistanschoolseige. What on earth does the Taliban stand to gain from killing all those kids? It will merely spark more outrage and more hatred. With so many lives lost, and so much pain caused, what credibility does the Taliban gain? Only fear and then submission at the end of a gun. Nobody wants to live like that. Maybe it is a Yoda thing - that anger will lead to hate and that will lead us to the Dark Side. (I think we're already there.)

The strange thing about anger is that it can also help galvanize people to a common mission and in this case, a common enemy. There could be political play. Maybe the US will be asked to lend their military might. Maybe there locals will rout out their own corrupt. 

It begs the question on how one brand of Islam can be so different from others. So harsh and unforgiving. Such acts make it easy to point fingers and stereotype. Those who do not wish to look around will paint all Muslims with the same brush. It's already happening with bigoted comments airing on US TV swaying audiences one way and the next. 

We forget quickly how the early Christian faith was also so harsh and unforgiving. Christians burned witches and massacred many during the Crusades. Christian Europe and America took slaves, people they deemed beneath them, fit for labour and hardship, not fit even to worship their same churches. That wasn't too long ago. There are many similarities among religions and all the bad things done in their name. 

What the Taliban has done is unfathomable. Many would add unforgivable. But they are people too. What made them so angry and different?  

So what now? How will this heartlessness that plagues our time seek to unravel us? Has our connectivity bred nothing but a need for instant entertainment, fame and fortune? We may have lost some humanity in our pursuit of the future. We have not yet realised the common things that bind us, only exaggerated the things that separate us - borders, wealth, status, number of followers. Things will likely get worse before they get better. I have been wishing for aliens to make contact so that the Star Trek prophecy becomes reality. Even Independence Day coming true might bring us altogether (the common enemy theory). 

Maybe for a start, let's be nicer to one another. And be willing to stand up for what's right.