Look for the helpers

In light of Monday's bombing in Boston I initially decided that people are the absolute worst. Then I started watching the news footage of it. Right when that bomb went off, I mean, right away, people were running to help those that were injured. Watching that, I realized that people may not be all that bad. 

There's a few whack jobs out there. There are evil people that do evil things. Sometimes they have a cause they think they're fighting for, sometimes they just take glee in inflicting terror. Regardless of the whys and hows, sometimes really bad things happen and good people are hurt and killed. During these times is when hero's are created. Real heros, not Superman and Batman, but everyday people. 

Patton Oswald, a delightfully funny man,  said pretty much my exact feelings only much more eloquently:

"Boston. F*cking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”

But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

And he's right. He's so right. 


My heart absolutely breaks for the lives that were lost, the people that were horribly injured, and all the people in their lives who love them. Sometimes it takes something horrible to put trivial irritations in perspective. A little boy killed by bomb makes my teething baby woes the most trivial of trivial. 

Hug your loved ones. Forgive the small things.