The year 2012 is coming to a close and I couldn’t be more excited, nervous, weary, caution, and a bit skeptical about the upcoming days. Aside from all the hoopla surrounding the 21st of December, and the upsurge of violence and negative energies flooding the environment  from mass murders, to ethnic cleansing in Eastern Africa, our nation’s volatile relations with foreign parties, I can’t help but notice that I am slowly becoming insensitive to all of these ‘tragedies.’ Weeks ago the New York Post released a front page article that bore the photo of a man in the subway tracks - meters away - from an oncoming train. Later to learn that the photographer and several others on the platform that day (after the assailant had left the station) watched this man get struck and killed by train. In a raging passion I spent the remainder of that week, questioning everyone and anyone that knew of the story, what they would have done should they have been presented with the same scenario one day on the way to work?

Would you have helped that man? Would you have risked your life to save his? Would you have tried? At least.

The man would have died a bit happier knowing that someone tried to help him in such a moment of vulnerability… for both parties involved. Should an outside force had decided to step in. I had this deep anger. 

What kind of human being could have just watched this man die is such a manner? What kind of human being wouldn’t have attempted to save him? Entirely convinced that humanity had finally reached the point where emotions no longer seemed to “function” and everyone had finally entered this disillusioned state of mind where minor tragedies such as that one, have to be ignored. Much like the way America has with the outside would since it’s birth. 

God forbid, someone dies in America. With this new found insensitivity, I figured this nonchalant attitude towards human life could be accepted and used for all tragedies following that man. Then Sandy Hook happened, I read the article, blinked my eyes, and went about my day. As the day dragged on I couldn’t help but notice a new energy that was filling the office where I work. Everyone’s day had hit the fan because of this Connecticut shooting business. 
Everyone is starting to give a shit now?

Moments before I even heard about the Sandy Hook shooting, I read an article that accompanied the photo of a young African boy walking through the charred wreckage of what once was his home in South Sudan. Completely unaware of the government coup that was (and still is) occurring in Sudan I read more and more into the article. It turns out the focus of the photo was not the charred house, but what was on the wall behind the young man; child like drawings similar to cave writing were etched across the wall. It is custom in Sudan to document important family members or figures who have passed, by depicting them on the walls. The young man, and his younger sister (who was not in the photo) had just survived what would have “cleansed” them from Sudan. The Sudanese is ethnically cleansing  South Sudan with explosives. These young children watched their elder family members turn to vapor from the safety of a bunker in their garden. 

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t even begin to compare to a lone gunman walking into an elementary school, in well-to-do rural America. Not that I’m saying the death of another is more significant or less important than the other, but I feel that we can’t allow ourselves to mourn harder based on a massacres proximity to the American mainland. After reading about the Sudanese only then to hear about Sandy Hook completely drained me of any emotion. I couldn’t allow myself to be effected by all of the shit happening just a few minutes from my home, when the same thing happens just across the pond, and in China, and in Russian, and in Palestine, and in every corner, facet, and crevice of this planet; and I’ve yet to see any American shed a tear for a death outside of the country. 
Even our own countrymen (veterans/solider that dies overseas) don;t have tear shed for them because we’re so completely into ourselves, dicks in each others business for the wrong reasons, too blind and ignorant to the fact that the same things that happen on our soil, happen outside of our boundaries  and at greater consequence to the victims who are luckily unlucky to have survived. 

A friendly stranger respectfully called me insensitive because I neglected to show any unhappy emotion regarding the Sandy Hook incident. And frankly, I couldn’t. 
I really, in all honesty, did not care about the deaths in Connecticut. And my reason for feeling is as follows; I was more upset at the fact that so much media attention and human energy were wasted on lamenting for these young children.
The fact that the entire nation had the audacity to behave in a way that suggested that they didn’t expect something like this to happen is completely ridiculous.

In 1999, the Columbine shooting occurred and since then the country begged for gun control and “necessary steps” had to be taken in order to prevent things like that from happening again. But since Columbine, what necessary steps have in fact, been taken to assure that a massacre of that caliber could not occur on American soil? None. Not one step, nor crawl has been inched to make such a change. It happened later in Virginia Tech, and regulations for school security should have been altered and made concrete in 1966 after the Texas Bell Tower shooting. 

Are we letting these things happen, or are we just ignorant to the fact that something like this might never happen again. Does anyone remember the Dark Knight Opening Night shooting in Aurora, CO? Of course, you don’t. As quickly as we moved on after that massacre (along with it’s weird story and anomalies surrounding the assailant) without a worry. People still went to the movies, and the second Dark Knight film received beautiful reviews. We moved the fuck on. 

Which is what I’m hoping humanity be able to do come the New Year. Move the fuck on to love. Start to appreciate everything and anything. Take baby steps, breath. Re-evaluate priorities wants and needs. Move on to more beautiful and better things, stop being less ignorant, and become more aware. Don’t let your babies grow up to be soldiers in this world. Don’t raise your children to be ignorant and judgmental. We can’t afford to waste anymore energy. We can’t afford to harness negative energies. Time, we have enough of, it’s the capacity of love that we are running out of. There’s a quote attributed to Hendrix, spoken by William Gladstone, and said by Sri G. Ghose that reads: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then there will be true peace.”

Hopefully the nation, and slowly, and surely, the world will move on this love feel. 
I see nothing but good things in the near future, but given the people have yet to realize the power is within them, and we have forfeited over our valor and drive to the powers that be, I can’t help but remain skeptical. But on a smaller scale, let’s look at a figure and determine how real revolution is just based on simple numbers. 
There are over 20 million people in the New York City metropolitan area, 8 million in the 5 boroughs alone; The NYPD has 8 helicopters, 31 German Shepherds, 3 Bloodhounds, 8,839 Police cars, 11 Boats, 120 Horses, and 34,500 uniformed officers. New Yorkers outnumber the police 230 to 1. Shit is possible, and this is all hypothetical banter (that could be used as briefing material). 

Much like my thinking, this post is all over the place and solely a means of venting. (something I don’t normally do) but I’m starting to become open to the fact that I can bore innocent strangers with my incessant bullshit. 

Love, and stay beautiful

_ERL