Oh Boy…

Dearest Rachel –

I remember being at the hospital while the news was breaking about John Lennon being shot. I wasn’t at the hospital he was being taken to, of course; this was when my grandfather was being taken to be seen about what turned out to be a fatal case of lung cancer (and this thirty years after having given up smoking – it would seem to me some time vices will come back to haunt you, no matter when you renounce them). Being only in middle school at the time, I wasn’t the Beatles fan I eventually became, but I still remember a few days later, reading his obituary in a popular news magazine at the time:

I saw the news today, oh boy…

The opening line of “A Day in the Life”; a pretty good (and powerful) opening line to describe the last day in his life, and its effect on those who know him and his work

It’s a good way to describe myself and Daniel in this moment. For all that we’re supposed to be on vacation, it’s not like we can pull ourselves away from the internet, and the news that it shares with us. While I’ve set most of my ‘work’ aside for the duration (and for that matter, I’m having difficulty working the HDMI cable to give myself a second screen so as to actually do ‘work’ while I’m aboard the ship), I’m trying to keep in touch with you, and by extension, the rest of the world. As a result, the news of the world leaks in – including that of what happened on yesterday afternoon at Utah Valley University.

I’m not going to lie; as each detail came in, I was having flashbacks of that January afternoon when you had to leave. There’s the rush to the hospital to accompany your injured body; the hour or two while you wait, believing with all your heart that the doctors are doing everything they can to save you; and then slowly, the realization that there is nothing more they can do in that area. I know exactly what his family is going through, and it’s a shattering experience to relive, however remotely.

To be fair, the soundtrack of the moment seemed more along the lines of U2’s “Pride,” but with the details adjusted accordingly. “September tenth, two-thirty p.m.; shots ring out on the Orem quad,” something like that. Daniel wonders if you’ve met the fellow as he crossed over to your side of their veil at this point.

I know that this sounds like an equivocation between this guy and the likes of Martin Luther King. But let’s face it, this was an assassination, too; someone didn’t like what he had to say, and did what they thought they had to in order to silence him for good. It seems as simple as that. After years of being told that anyone who disagrees with one is literally the worst person who ever walked the face of the earth – or worse, a demon from hell itself – it would seem to be a perfectly reasonable course of action to remove the threat to public order. One must destroy the threat, and then the next one, and the next one, and so on ad infinitum. As long as there is dissent, it must be crushed, it must be killed; only then can the world find harmony and balance.

Does this sound insane to you, honey? There are entire swaths of the internet rejoicing about this at the moment. People are blessing the bullet that struck his neck – but interestingly, not acknowledging the sniper behind the gun, which stands to reason, as this would require admitting that it’s the person doing the killing, and not the gun – in certain quarters of social media. A man is dead, a widow has been made, young children have become orphans, and there is much rejoicing, because he wanted to talk with others who did not share his beliefs, and thought he could convince them with his words of the righteousness of his position. I guess this showed him, didn’t it?

Of course, there is also anger in other quarters. Some thirst for vengeance and retribution, the time-honored administration of extralegal justice. But given what the one side does about people’s words, imagine the response to deeds like that. An eye for an eye would eventually render the whole world blind, as the saying goes. There is no less civil a thing than ‘civil’ war. Granted, it could be argued that this is what the sniper – and those who agree and are celebrating with them – are wanting, but that would seem like all the more reason not to give it to them. They believe their opponents to be inhuman monsters, after all; why prove exactly that to the world at large?

Meanwhile, there’s probably the counter-argument that one must censor oneself, lest one’s opinions set off a murderous rage in an another for disagreeing with them. The assassin’s veto is now to be applied to all of social discourse going forward. No one can present themselves as their genuine self anymore, on pain of death – because at some point, there will be disagreement between any two people, and as a result, one of them must kill the other because of that. Oppressive fear becomes the order of the day.

None of these options strike me as tenable, but there isn’t much I can do about it. To be sure, if I were to be so penalized for disagreeing with someone, at least I’d be with you at that point, so maybe ‘fear’ isn’t the right word for the latter situation, at least from my perspective. But I can’t say I like the environment we’re suddenly having to acknowledge.

For his part, Daniel thinks I’m being too pessimistic; he claims that divine forces are at work to bring the world back from the brink. But I’m too familiar with human nature to think that, by and large, we will follow our better angels. More likely, enough of us will follow our worse devils instead – indeed, it only took one in a crowd of thousands to wreck havoc yesterday. We have a long way to go before reaching rock bottom, which is the only point at which some of us will be able to consider attempting any upward path (since there will be no other options from there).

Meanwhile, there is no Sam Beckett to ‘put right what once went wrong.’ What has gone wrong, has gone wrong, and we have to live in this wronged world, that continues to get more so every day. There’s really nothing more to say about it than what he would say upon being thrown into a new time and place; “Oh, boy…”

I don’t know if you’ve greeted him; it would be in character for you, but there are people coming in all the time, I shouldn’t wonder. Would he stand out amid the regular throng of entrants? Maybe; or maybe there would be enough folks already welcoming him there. I don’t know how things work where you, despite Daniel’s own claims to that effect. All I can do is to ask for you to continue to keep an eye on us down here. Oh, and wish us luck; we’re definitely going to need it.