WATERDROPS ON FIRE

Guns are the hashtagged, trigger generating, all mighty keyword in a hot topic conversation en masse, where they’re the slow guy in a robbery scene, and they’re the ones left holding the bag.
 
But like any problem that holds us all hostage, there is no one simple solution. Doing something about all the guns that are in all the hands they should not be in, is part of the solution, but it’s gonna take a lot of want, and a lot of give, and a lot of that grimy, mud wrestling, down in the dirt, back and forth, heart wrenching give and take, to figure out how to find all the solutions, and how to put them all to work. Together. As a well-oiled machine against anguish and death.

This violence, and this death doesn’t just come as someone’s casual idea. It comes from the deep, lonely, frightening, self-hating and disturbed black abyss, that is the mind and heart of so many mass shooters.
 
These shooters can hate, and these shooters can scream, but you’re probably not going to see it. You’re not going to see them cry. You won’t see them hate themselves even worse than they hate those around them. You’ll just see the gun. One day. Suddenly. Too late. The gun that’s left holding the bag while every other societal problem, gets away.
 
That hate, and fear, and self-loathing, and the river of anguished tears that rage non-stop inside like a firehose against the heart and mind, that stuff has been growing for a long, long time, like the seedlings of a burning bush that takes that long to finally burst into hopeless, angry flames.
 
The crime of abusive parents, the sorrow of single parent households where a father or mother can’t spend time with their kid because they need to work 2 and sometimes 3 jobs, the devastation of unreported assault, poor school systems that can’t support the schools, kids that get so bullied for so long that they eventually feel the value of their life is so small, that their life isn’t worth living… but if they’re gonna go down, they’re gonna take someone else with them. This lack of example, lack of guidance, lack of education, and lack of consequence is all part of the same problem, and the solution for each of those, needs to be all part of a larger answer. The tragedy of a child whose inner tears flow like a dam over some wall, to irrigate miles of tiny seeds that blossom into black loathing and darkness, and enough anguish to make someone want to lash out in hate, can’t be solved with just one solution, because it’s not just one problem.
 
Anytime you throw too little water on a big fire, eventually, you’re still going to have a big fire.
 
It’s not just the guns. Guns are a part of it, but it’s not just the guns. It’s all these children and kids growing up with hurdles that not only look like massive walls, but walls that are constantly coming down, falling on them, crushing them, squeezing the breath and the light of the child out of them, but only enough, not to kill them. Just enough to make them suffer in growing despair, and anguish, until they want to kill themselves, or someone else, or both. It’s the bullying and the assault and lack of education and lack of responsibility and lack of time and lack of empathy and so many other things that are an essential part of the DNA that make a society worth living in… for everybody.
 
Those who have the power to make the changes needed, are too busy making impressions instead. They’re too busy trying to keep their jobs to try to keep the humane side of humanity. Greed, and money and the need to look good in the moment, have taken priority over finding solutions that may take just long enough, that someone might not get credit for their success when it finally happens. So it ends up being deemed not worthy of making happen.
 
And while all of those life changing possibilities are rendered useless, by those who could make them happen, half the population is raging against guns as the pinnacle of solutions, while the other half mirrors back that same rage because they disagree. So in the end, we have no solution. We focus so much on one solution, in the end, when we cancel each other out, we have no solution.
 
And more people die.
 
It’s not just the guns. Guns are a part of it… but it’s not just the guns….. and we need to stop throwing waterdrops, on a very large fire.

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