So.
This morning in my email in box this article – We Regret to Inform You That the Remainder of 2016 has been Cancelled -, highlighted by Medium as a must read, popped up.
I read it.
I loved the way it was written.
A portion of me empathized with the feeling … and a larger portion of me balked.
Ok.
Pushed back.
And pushed back hard.
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“People get up, they go to work, they have their lives, but you never see the headlines say, ‘Six billion people got along rather well today.’
You’ll have the headline about the 30 people who shot each other. “
—
John Malkovich
===
I certainly understand the sentiment of the article … shit … I absolutely relate to the overall sense that the world, and America, is not running on all 8 cylinders at the moment.
But.
Is the world a disaster? Do I really want to cancel the remainder of 2016 <although being able to avoid the upcoming presidential election slaughter sounds appealing>?
No. No on both questions.
Just think about these things <as a direct response to what is shared in the article>.
David Bowie died. So did Prince. As well as my favorite book’s author Harper Lee. And Elie Weisel.
I mourned all.
Keith Richards <who by any health measure should be dead> is alive. As is Paul McCartney, Buddy Guy, Bob Dylan, Paul Weller, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Coretta Scott King, even all the Spice Girls, well … you get the point. In addition, like them artistically or not, Taylor Swift, John Green, John Mayer, Matt Bell, JayZ, Miranda Lambert, JK Rowling, etc. are jockeying position for this generation’s guardians of music and literature.
In the end there is a beginning and with each beginning there is an end.
On June 13th some lunatic killed too many people in Orlando.
In the other 3,143 counties and in the other 19,428 cities & towns <with municipal governments> people went to work, had lunch with friends and went home to families at night.
On the same day the Cavaliers beat the Warriors. The NY Yankees had a day off. Some athlete made some child’s day by visiting a cancer ward in some hospital <and we never heard about it>. There were 10,000 picnics that day <I made that number up>. Several million people visited a museum or national park. Public swimming pools were filled with children enjoying the beginning of summer <as children do> and about 10,829 children were born that day.
And, yes, there have been over 900 officer-involved shootings so far in 2016 and 136 black people have been killed. Outside of those 900 shootings, police interact <face-to-face or remote> with approximately 62.9 million U.S. residents age 16 or older, or about one quarter of American adults <source: 2011>, on an annual basis … that means almost 62,899,900 interactions take place without some shooting.
And while no one believes 136 people of any color should be shot … the remaining 46,281,944 African Americans in the United States are alive and <mostly> enjoy Life and the freedoms America has to offer in 2016.
And on the day 2 Muslim Americans went on a killing spree in San Bernardino approximately 3,299,998 other Muslim Americans woke up, grabbed a drink at a Starbucks on their way to work, did their jobs, contributed some taxes to the economy, bought some groceries and went to bed a little tired … just like everyone else in America.
And on that horrible day in Aurora Colorado when a disenfranchised Christian went into an abortion clinic and killed mothers the majority of the remaining 267,260,000 Christian Americans said a prayer, lived a day with dignity and faith, smiled at some people on the street, maybe complained about something they saw and joked around with their coworkers <whose faith they most likely do not even know nor does it really matter in the overall sense of camaraderie>.
On any given day 321,900,000+ <of the possible 322 million> Americans live their Life, do their jobs, have their friends, share a joke with co workers, bitch about something, smile at some point and enjoy their Life. They do not kill anyone. They do not get shot by a policeman. They do not hate so much they yell at someone or write something hateful on twitter or online.
On any given day most of the 7,436,729,532 people in the world <the population as of noon on 7/16/2106 per the World Population Clock > get up, go to work, have their lives and got along “rather well today.”
Please.
Please understand what I am saying.
Trump is wrong.
This writer is wrong.
It is not all a disaster.
I certainly am not trying to diminish bad things nor issues that should be addressed. Anyone reading my site know I have written on racism, inequality, religion and almost every social issue we face.
But I am trying to provide some perspective.
We have real issues.
And as I recently noted divisiveness exacerbates what issues we do have https://brucemctague.com/whats-going-on-must-stop . And, frankly, the media exacerbates the issues by amplifying random events to such a fever pitch that they appear larger than they are.
But none of the issues we have, racial/extremism/intolerance/inequality/poverty/etc., are unsolvable nor should they be an indication we should cancel out … well … time.
In fact.
I could argue rather than cancel a year we should be embracing what time we have to step up and start addressing whatever issues we do have.
But that’s me.
I have no interest in canceling 2016.
I have no interest in canceling anything … I want the world, and year, open for business.
And I want anything and everything to walk into my business because … well … that’s the only way I can deal with whatever it is that needs to be dealt with.