This is an attempt to exemplify in words the ways in which I view the world we live in.
Pretty intense? Deep? Maybe.
It wasn’t until I took notice of the 307 shootings (circa 2018) that I took interest in writing this.
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My mind wanders. It thinks in ways far different than most. Or maybe it doesn’t, I’m no mind reader. Though from conversations I have had with my friends or my peers, I have self diagnosed my thoughts as being far ‘different’ than most.
**Feel free to negate that notion. I am a fairly open minded person**.
I am not writing this to talk about the different ways our country can save whatever peace and prosperity we may have left, or, for that matter, incorporate any thoughtful or empathetic approaches to whatever undesirable situations we may come across.
My intention for writing this is to simply voice my opinion on how gross this world has become.
Now, I know what you’re thinking and the answer is:
Yes. I said gross.
Rhyme or Reason
You get a job at amazon, for a reason.
You transferred schools, for a reason.
You left the house 5 minutes later than usual and somehow saved yourself from what would have been a fatal car accident, for a reason.
Oddly enough, I have come to terms with the idea that some things in our lives, NOT ALL, but some, do not necessarily happen for a reason.
Some things might happen and you may come across people that GIVE you reason (I sure have, *below are just a few*), though I don’t believe that those series of events were FOR a reason.
There are things in life that happen randomly.
Uh..
Randomly?
Yes.
Randomly.
Some things in life happens randomly, and that randomness provides you with new ‘random’ opportunity.
Uh
How?
"I got fired from Costco but then got a better job working in corporate for Ralph’s and that didn’t happen for a reason??? Bitch please. You trippppppin."
Funny thing is you getting fired from Costco was random. You getting fired may have been because of budget cuts or maybe you were just placed in the most inconvenient sample station that just wasn’t really of much value anymore.
You begin looking for jobs so you apply to Ralph’s corporate position.
You get hired.
"Yeah Jen, you know, i think getting fired really truly WAS for a REASON. "
Jen?
Hey girl. I’m gonna have to go ahead and swing left, because quite frankly, I don’t believe it was for a reason.
I believe it was random and that randomness GAVE you an opportunity which therefore GAVE you reason.
I sound redundant but I say this because many people try to place a ‘reason‘ on why bad things happen to, said, ‘good’ people.
Now that we get the gist of it, here is why I think in such an odd and peculiar way.
Or maybe a lot of people think this way and just don’t voice their opinion?
Anyways,
My uncle past in 2014 from a dirt biking accident. He was an incredibly charismatic, optimistic, FUNNY, human being. A one in a million kinda guy. His death was for absolutely no reason. It just unfortunately...happened.
Robert Bowers, the shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killed 11 soulful and beautiful human beings. That, my friends, was for no reason.
It was random.
Completely and utterly random.
Thank you, racism, next.
The world is at this moment in time is unfathomable.
I thought that by 2010 there would be flying cars and buildings made out of fiber glass.
Not mass murders.
I thought that by 2020 Kanye would be running for president.
Not dropping any and all political affiliations with the U S of A.
And I may be mistaken but ..
Wasn’t the world supposed to end in 2012?
Or, I mean, Maybe it did?
There was the Aura, Colorado shooting where James Eagan Holmes brought a Glock 22 Semi Auto Pistol as his date to the Dark Night Rises premier.
12 casualties. (2012).
There was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting where Adam Lanza took himself back to the first grade but this time brought a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle with him.
27 casualties. (2012).
...maybe the world STARTED ending the year of 2012 and our country has just decided to prolong these effects and instill a more prevalent depiction of whatever end to humanity our future entails?
The land of the free!
Home of the...
Yeah. I bet you couldn’t finish that sentence either. Brave wouldn’t be the correct term...right?
How can one be brave going to the movies?
The mall?
Yoga..?
WHO SHOOTS UP A YOGA STUDIO!?! A SACRED SPACE FOR G-D’S SAKE?!?!!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/03/us/tallahassee-shooting-yoga-studio/index.html
This country is scared.
My friends are scared. My family is scared. You’re scared.
Take what happened in Thousand Oaks, CA for example. I had never felt as uneasy as I had when catching wind of what had happened.
The website places an add saying:
Borderline: COUNTRY COLLEGE NIGHTS
Wednesday! Doors open at 9pm. Dance lessons at 9:30 and 10:30.
Biggest Dance Floor in Town!
It sounds so inviting! So appealing! So..FUN!
But then Wednesday evening comes around. 100+ guests enter the club. Everyone is dancing and socializing, exchanging compliments on their new and improved cow boy boots. Some are dining on burgers, others on fries..
*2 Hours Later*
"Breaking News! 28 Year Old gunman opens fire at Borderline Country Bar & Grill"
"Witnesses say gunman opened fire the moment he walked into the club"
"Like Hell: Thousand Oaks bar full of life before it became the site of another mass shooting"
Who would have thought that those 12 individuals, set on having a memorable evening, post-midterm season, would be having their last memorable evening, post-midterm season..?
People’s lack of empathy and compassion to all individuals regardless of race, gender, sexuality, and beliefs is what I truly believe could shrivel whatever little bit of humanity our society has left.
That and climate change, of course.
(Well, I guess we’re Fucked anyway)
We live one life.
One.
Personally, I find no reason as to why people’s lives are taken so soon consequential to the act of hate crimes, racial crimes, religiously induced crimes, crimes regarding other people’s sexual orientation, crimes NOT regarding other people’s sexual orientation, or any of the notions stated above for that matter.
It is beyond me.
It will forever be beyond me.
But maybe I’m just far more liberal than I thought?
Or maybe its just become a social norm to simply resort to gun violence when things in life just, I guess, ‘tick’ us off?.
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Haters are No Motivators
I just took a biopsych midterm. Sounds absolutely riveting doesn’t it?
We learned about axons and dendrites, the frontal lobe and even a little somethin somethin about the parietal lobe; we learned about all things that make us human, that make us who we are.
Look beyond one’s Race..
..Religion
..Sexual orientation.
It is absolutely without a doubt one hundred and 20 percent fair to say that We are all ACTUALLY...
The same.
I mean, to an extent, of course. my friend’s sister was born with 4 kidneys so I mean one could argue she might be a hell of a lot cooler than a majority of us but we could just all agree on the fact that she’s the exception.
___________________
I still, to this day, can not fathom why people are so concerned with the ways in which other people live their lives.
I am Jewish.
Jew-ISH** actually.
I say that because I’m a big fan of Christmas; I call it:
"Christmikkah".
Well, Seth calls it christmikkah I just stole the idea from him a few years back.
Anyways, what I believe in and how I choose to portray those beliefs is of no one else’s concern.
What gender I choose to date is of no one else’s concern.
Whether I put up a Christmas tree or a hannakuh bush or..
Both?
Is of NO ONE ELSE’S CONCERN.
!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
Put yourself in the shoes of those you are criticizing. Imagine you were the minority and you walked in fear that maybe today could be your last day simply because of the way you choose to live your life.
That, right there, is injustice.
To live in the land of the free, and the home of the ____________
..in fear?
(still feel free to insert a word you think would best complete that sentence. I still haven’t found one.)
That is an injustice in and of itself.
Feminists have fought decades for the equal rights of woman.
The LGBTQ community has finally made a mark in society to where they are more accepted than they had ever been before.
The ability to look beyond the notion that an individual’s beliefs were once punishable by death calls for a toast doesn’t it?
We have won. We have severed the injustices of the past and provided an unencumbered path to a utopian future!
Or so we thought...
This is a list shootings, within the last three months, that have plagued the livelihoods of the many families who fell victims to these tragedies.
In just 2018 alone there have been 307 mass shootings.
THREE HUNDRED AND SEVEN.
TECHNICALLY, thats nearly as many shootings as there are DAYS in the year. People are now FAR MORE LIKELY to die from gun violence than many leading causes of death...COMBINED.
But let’s never forget:
May 23, 2014.
This one hits home.
It was just another Friday Night in Isla Vista, right? Students were seen standing in line at the local IV Deli Mart. Some waiting to buy a chaser or two for their scheduled pregame, and others waiting for their order of, what many call, a fan-favorite: Buffalo Chicken Cheese Fries.
(Scrumptious. I know.)
It is about 9:20.
Now, Elliot Rodgers comes into the picture.
Ring A bell?
Elliot Rodgers killed 6 students on May 23, 2014, injuring 14 others. Elliot Rodgers was a coward. A thief. He stole the livelihood of all those attending UCSB, for all those living within what many believed Isla Vista to be, a sacred place.
It’s interesting.
I had recently spoken to a friend and the topic of international homicide/crime came about.
EX 1:
In Israel, sitting at a bus stop is now just as dangerous as walking skid row in Los Angeles at roughly 3 in the morning.
"Israeli killed in terror stabbing attack in West Bank!"
EX 2:
In Europe, an 89 year old holocaust surviver and a 13 year old girl were found murdered within the confines of their Jewish home.
https://youtu.be/eyOh1UGnmAk
I say to him,
"Could you imagine living in countries where bombings and stabbings are just something that are common, that people do like it’s nothing???"
He responded with 2 words.
Four letters to be exact.
"We do".
I was a bit confuzzled at first, but I took a second to process the response and BAM!
It clicked. My environmentally friendly light bulb went off!
I had come to the realization that America IS that country.
Now let that sink in.
Midterm Election season comes along and 12 Democrats receive suspicious, anonymous packages at their doorstep.
People like Robert Deniro and Barack Obama were victims. Luckily, no one was killed nor injured, though my sanity was about ready to tip over the edge.
A life without Robert Deniro???? No. Frickin. Way. Man.
Anywho,
There is Isis.
There is the Boston Marathon Bombing.
And let’s never forget where this all began.
9/11.
It’s quite CRAZY, actually, to think that on New Years Eve or on Valentines Day or even on Memorial Day weekend, WE ARE MORE EXPECTED THAN NOT, to experience some tragic, mass, unfathomable terrorist-like attack.
"..more expected than not..."
Ridiculous.
This life is so unbelievably precious. We are only given one of them. Your mind, your soul, your existence, all pose a testament to who you are, to your individuality.
It makes each of us special in our own way. There will never be another Caroline Megan Miller or another Tal Sahar walking this earth.
But, I mean, on the off chance you DO happen to come across my doppelgänger, you’d be doing me a WORLD OF A FAVOR by letting me know, so feel free to slide in the DM’s if need be.
She looks a lil something like this:
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Agree to Disagree
You probably don’t agree with the way I think.
What I wrote may be bias or even a bit extreme.
And maybe it is, but you know what..
..That’s OK because in 1776 we were given a god given right otherwise known as:
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
Also, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t really care much whether people agree or disagree with my beliefs or my disbeliefs.
Why? You are given one life to live (as stated one too many times before). It is a privilege to be able to live it in any which way you please; Your ideas or your beliefs are not any less important than someone else’s.
This sounds like a load of bullshit. A cliche you’ve probably heard many a times before right?
Get this.
Every individual has a story to tell. A story that defines why they are who they are and the reasons for believing in what they believe in.
A person can be an absolute monster to be around but that monster like demeanor most likely stems from something in their past.
Your emotions are a testament to your individuality.
WHY we react to certain situations different than others or WHY we get upset or mad over things that another individual may perceive as unimportant is something we can’t control. It isn’t essentially our faults. THAT is what characterizes our individuality.
What we CAN control is HOW we choose to act on those reactions.
I’m writing this not to pose anymore negativity than what the angst of midterms or finals have already brought upon us, but to simply try and share my take on this world.
The hate is draining. It is exhausting. But most importantly, it is saddening.
It is saddening to see that the country we were once so proud of has now become something we fear.
If you have read this far, I appreciate you.
If not, I didn’t want you to read it anyway...
...and know that I’m not crazy. But I mean, maybe that’s what crazy people say?
Who knows.
Anywho, Thank you for reading.
Best Regards,
Tal