24 Aug 2010
04:28

Woke up and couldn't sleep anymore. Mostly I'm still in shock after having watched just last night the spectacle of a man ending the lives of fellow human beings over live tv. With the conclusion of course of that man getting killed himself.

And so just this morning in bed while trying to recover sleep I am reminded of why it is forbidden in most every religion to take another man's life. Somewhat similar to what the narrator's father in "The Kite Runner" says--and yet still different. Killing another human being is, yes, basically stealing his right to life. And yet it still is different than regular stealing, in that if you steal a material possession from someone, you always know the value of what it is you steal. You more or less know by what amount you deprive that person. With killing it's different; you never know how many tomorrows you deprive that person you kill, how many sunrises he'll never see again, how many raindrops he'll never feel on his skin, how many smiles and acts of affection he'll never again be able to give his lovedones, just because you ended his life. It IS still stealing, but it is far worse than any other type of stealing a person can commit against another.

And so while I was browsing thru facebook immediately after the tragedy, curious about people's reactions to the event, I came across that single line that I'd been certain for a long time I'd never find in the midst of all the ego and vanity and excessive self centeredness/tracking that we channel thru there. On Dave's brother, Joe's, status was a quote from the Dalai Lama: "be kind to others whenever possible... it's always possible." And I've proven myself wrong. Kindness, afterall, is still being given thought even in a place like facebook.

We are insignificant. With all our imagined sorrows, greatness, our fleeting beauty, our supposed intelligence, we are very close to nothing. Zoom out to a tiny fraction of a light year from our planet and we are nothing but that pale blue dot Carl Sagan points out--that is, if we even do see that tiny dot at all. In the scale of the expanse of the entire universe what are we? In the scale of all the eons the universe has been around and will still be, human history itself is far, far less than that insignificant blink of an eye. And still how dare we presume we have the power to decide over the life and death of another fellow human being--no matter how deserving we believe that someone is of death? I guess I'll have to keep this in mind whenever I fly into a homicidal rage against someone for whatever reason. One person has no right to deprive another of an unknown number of tomorrows.