King of Pain

© BaltimoreSun.com

Movies and television have long given advanced warning of graphic content before showing or broadcasting to audiences. Social media, and the internet in general, are lagging a bit and so less savvy users are occasionally startled by content they were not expecting and that they would deem inappropriate for themselves or younger members of their family. Personally, I count images and videos depicting graphic violence between animals as something I would like to be warned about rather than suddenly confronted with in social media. It does not stop there, though, and people who voice their discomfort are often shamed by others for not being "man enough" to take it. That needs to end.

We could probably debate the true meaning of the song "King of Pain," by The Police from their Synchronicity album, but what I take away from it is that the singer feels intensely the suffering of every other living creature. It is inescapable, much as he longs for relief. I can empathize with that. Indeed, empathy is the whole point of this blog post. My brain, for whatever reason, is acutely sensitive to graphic violence and gore. I sometimes find myself involuntarily recalling horrible images or movie scenes without prompting, just suddenly, randomly, and for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, I have much more difficulty conjuring peaceful, pleasant images. Maybe you are wired differently. I hope you are wired differently. It is not any fun to be a King of Pain.

Professional wildlife photographers should be committed to documenting life with honesty, and predation, territorial battles, and other violent conflicts are a part of life, no question. It is difficult for me to communicate my understanding of that to my camera-toting colleagues while at the same time arguing against what amounts to nature violence pornography. It may come down to intent. Sex sells. If it bleeds it leads. You know the drill. Networks and their executives who pander to a perceived public bloodlust are also failing to be honest, let alone fair and balanced. They may need more diverse focus groups, or simply stop making assumptions, or otherwise take responsibility for their content instead of claiming that a steady diet of violence is what audiences want. This includes Discovery Channel and Nat Geo.

Online, I have finally noticed that the more responsible outlets for natural history content, and/or my friends, are prefacing videos at least with text warnings if the content is of a violent or graphic nature. I appreciate having the choice to click or not. When someone shares a graphic video or image then I will comment that I do not like to see that kind of thing without warning, thank you. Sometimes, if their reply is impolite, I unfollow them.

I have been told that if I don't want to be exposed to certain things then I should get off the internet. I have been told to "man up," implying that if I find certain things distasteful then I am somehow being a baby or too sensitive or some other judgmental epithet. No, I am not a child or some other kind of innocent, but I am vulnerable. Some people are not comfortable with being vulnerable, but we don't shame them for having a hardened heart. I would not advocate that we should. There is no place for shaming anybody except, perhaps, those who perpetrate cruelty, shame, discrimination, and other acts of wanton, needless hostility.

This is another kind of divide in our country, one of conflicting personality traits. It is not necessary that we all think alike, or "feel" alike, either. We need diversity in all aspects of our life: biologically, psychologically, and socially. What we must have in order for that diversity to flourish is respect and acceptance. You want to watch animals killing each other? Fine, but do not admonish me for not desiring the same thing, or objecting to it when you gave me no choice but to see it. Understand the difference between someone standing up for themselves, and someone berating you for whatever excites you.

Mandatory Meditation?

© The New York Times, nytimes.com

I recently posed a question to my friends in social media who are gun advocates, for lack of a better term. I asked what they were so afraid of. The overwhelming response was to avoid answering directly. Instead they offered the usual arguments for their position. One even suggested that there should be mandatory gun safety courses in middle school and/or high school, I cannot recall which. That met with some sharp replies and "wow" emojis. It got me thinking, though, about what else we might want to become mandatory in our society.

How about mandatory meditation? We need mindfulness more than ever now. Desperately, in fact. The ultimate in being proactive is not learning how to use a gun, it is learning how never to need one. Maybe we should be required to learn meditation, and to exercise it before we shoot off anything, from our mouths to our magnum .44s. I myself am not entirely sure what constitutes meditation. I know there are many different styles, some related to religions, others that are independent of any dogma, but I am embarrassed that I have not sought to learn more. It is unfortunate that meditation is something of a casualty of dismissing the "New Age" movement. Meditation is not a fad, nor a dinosaur. It is a life skill, emphasis on "life."

The point is that we are all too well-prepared to be violent. No one is prepared to be peaceful.

What is that long-standing joke? "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." How wonderful it would be if, metaphorically speaking, we went to a mass shooting and a yoga convention spontaneously occurred. Collectively, we have a profound disconnect between our minds and our bodies. We are over-stimulated and on edge almost every waking hour. Then we cannot get to sleep. Advertising has become a substitute for education, and so we believe that exercise must be vigorous, even violent like boxing, and can be accomplished in as little as what, fifteen minutes? We do workouts. We should be doing peace-ins.

"Did he say mandatory medication?" No, but we pretty much have that already, and it is both a blessing and a curse. Pharmaceutical companies are rich enough as it is, thank you, and the side effects of the drugs they are turning out are no doubt underplayed. Perhaps mandatory marijuana would be worth considering, though, to mellow everybody out. Here in Colorado we have decriminalized both medical and recreational use. We are still working out the kinks, but if it ever loses its stigma entirely, I like our chances of being a more peaceful community.

There are lots of things beginning with the letter "m" that might be nice if they were mandatory. Mandatory mediation is a cornerstone of the discipline known as restorative justice. It certainly de-escalates matters, and is arguably more effective in conflict resolution than traditional paths of legal recourse.

Mandatory music? Here is a facet of our school curricula that is often the first to be sacrificed as unnecessary, an "elective" and a frivolous use of our taxpayer dollars. Really? When was the last time you saw an angry, stressed-out musician? What about a hostile mob surrounding a solo musician in the subway station, at a bus stop, or on a public square? Music is energizing in a positive way, stress-relieving, and emotionally moving when it is at its best.

"Did he say mandatory masturbation?" No, but that does seem to help keep the peace in societies of Bonobos, formerly known as Pygmy Chimpanzees, our closest living relative. They are quite literally lovers, not fighters, from what I can gather, and worthy role models for the rest of us Great Apes. There should be no shame in any non-violent behavior that is consensual, self-gratifying, or calming, be it a nap or self-pleasuring.

Homo sapiens, it can be argued, is a violent species because we do not practice peace and love. Again, we allow greeting card companies, candy manufacturers, and florists to educate us about what love is. It is none of that. Peace does not come from any commercial outlet. No weapon is a "Peacemaker," not even the Colt Single Action Army revolver of the old wild west.

The point is that we are all too well-prepared to be violent. No one is prepared to be peaceful. Mastery of weapons is a "death skill," not a life skill. How we define preparedness has to change if we want fewer incidents of mass carnage, if we want the very fabric of civilization to remain intact.

Hearts and Guns

© Medi Belortaja and ToonPool.com

First, a note to future mass murderers: Remember to check the history books to make sure there is not already a major event from the past that will overshadow the morbid disaster you are planning. For instance, there already was a St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and it was way better than your pathetic bid for fame because it involved two warring organized crime syndicates and not law-abiding citizens. Now, on to a more constructive discussion for how to end these things once and for all.

The overriding barriers to meaningful dialogue are distrust and fear in our American culture. There are other factors that contribute to the stagnation and inaction in the wake of active shooter incidents, too. Arrogance and stubbornness for example. Our insistence that we can only solve this on our own, that we do not need help from abroad in reducing gun violence here at home. We are also entirely too eager to look to the marketplace to solve intractable problems. The answer is sure to be another product, another service, or just more products and services. What we get are more knock-offs, more non-solutions, like another diet fad that does nothing, or is even proven harmful down the road.

What are we so afraid of? Why do we continue to assume the worst about people we do not know personally? When did our society start to unravel so? We have to start with these questions to learn the motivations behind our behaviors, our actions, and our inactions. There is absolutely no room for dishonesty, for saying what you think other people want to hear. We will get nowhere without being brave, even if that means exposing selfish motives or trivial concerns. Maybe you frame your experiences and perceptions differently than others. That is fine. This is how we begin to understand each other. We do not know what has shaped your approach to life unless you share that.

We have to resist the urge to judge others, of course, when someone commits to divulging personal matters. Belittling and bullying we know to be triggers for homicidal and suicidal behaviors, and if we are trying to end those consequences then we need to listen without judging. We have to beware of being condescending, too, or even being too overtly compassionate. It is a fine line between detachment and empathy and most of us, most of the time, are not very good at walking it.

The bravest among us are the unarmed. Not just in the sense of not carrying literal weapons, but in lowering their emotional shields, shedding the armor around their hearts and minds, admitting weakness and fears. There should be no shame in any of that. To the contrary, these are people we should elevate to the heights of heroism, supermen and superwomen who owe their strength to kryptonite, the vulnerabilities that make them human. Step out of your shell, just peek out from under your rock. Baby steps, but steps, please.

Australia apparently has very strict gun laws. Do we look at our friends Down Under and think "wow, what a totalitarian regime they must be living in?" Of course not. We envy them, perceive their lives as sunnier, livelier, and a lot more relaxed than our own. We want to go there on vacation, if we can ever get enough money and time together. Our U.S. government leaders should be inquiring of Australia and other nations that do not have such frequent episodes of gun violence how they have come to make it work. No one has a monopoly on ideas.

We do know what is not working: Ignoring the problem, offering only thoughts and prayers, and relying on the proliferation of guns to somehow level the playing field. Correction, battlefield. Everyday life should not be a battle, a war. It should be about an intolerance of violence as normal.

We are currently an epic failure at loving each other, so perhaps it is fitting that another violent event took place on Valentine's Day, when it should be all about hearts and flowers and everything nice in the world. Go, from this day forward, professing what you love, what you fear, why you don't trust. Do it fearlessly, do it to free yourself of your own dark armor.

Peace Officers

We have already had three law enforcement officers slain in Colorado this year. The latest casualty resulted from an incident roughly half a mile up the road from my home. A total of four officers were shot, one of them fatally, plus the suspect (also a fatality) and an innocent bystander. What I learned is that we cannot properly grieve for these tragedies any more.

© KKTV News 11

What does it say about our current culture that one of my first thoughts was that I hoped the deceased suspect wasn't Black? That was not a likely scenario, if only because we do not have a high population of African Americans here in Colorado Springs. I think our community suffers from that, a lack of visible diversity and the cultural richness and vibrancy that comes with it. I digress. The line between the good guys and the bad guys is not as readily defined in this day and age as it once was. We trust no one, like we are living in an episode of The X-files or something. Authority has lost our respect, and too often there is a corpse unable to prove its innocence.

Maybe it never really was clear cut. Back in the nineteen sixties and seventies, when I was just a kid, activists used epithets to refer to policemen: Pig. The Fuzz. Copper. Cop. The consensus seemed to be that the police force worked for "The Man," not for average, ordinary citizens. Moreover they were agents of oppression of both ethnic minorities and minority viewpoints that disagreed with "the establishment." Sound familiar? Today, Whites are more likely to consider abuses of lethal force against minority suspects as isolated instances instead of rampant racism and oppression, but Black Lives Matter and other movements would beg to differ.

Alas, the shootout up the street appears to have no such controversy. El Paso County Sheriff's Department and Colorado Springs Police Department were conducting an investigation of an auto theft when things turned violent. A stolen car. That was worth killing for? The shooter was a 19-year old male. He had his whole life ahead of him, even if he had been arrested. The slain officer who died, to the day, on the eleventh anniversary of his hiring, had his two twin children's lives to look forward to.

We are appalled, disgusted, and struggling to come to terms with this as a neighborhood and city and county. We need to have a short memory, yet are told to never forget. I have walked that stretch of street countless times, and now it will never be the same. It has never crossed my mind that but for the grace of God I could take an errant bullet. No one should be living with that fear. Anywhere.

The public trust in law enforcement at street level here seems relatively healthy, for now, but one gets the uneasy feeling that it could all come apart with one incident of questionable use of force, someone's phone video, or a peaceful demonstration met with officers in riot gear. I think the bottom line in any given scenario is that the one who is the aggressor will always be the bad guy. Most of the time that will be a criminal, but once in a while it will be someone in uniform.

There are no easy answers, but maybe we can start with language. We can choose to continue throwing around derogatory slang terms for the police, or we can look at a thesaurus, as I did just now, and see that the first synonym listed for police officer is peace officer. Say it with me. Say it out loud. It has a calming quality, does it not? When was the last time you heard the word peace at all? Have we given up on the notion, even in our daily lives, let alone in regards to world conflicts? Maybe we need hope officers, too.

It takes a special breed of human being to comprehend the potential confrontation of their own mortality on a daily basis, and still want to serve the public good in the name of peace and justice, with the goal of saving lives and preventing violence and crime. You and I may not be that kind of person, but we can lead by example, be peace officers of a different caliber. We can go beyond mere racial "tolerance" and accept everyone as equal. We can walk the streets confidently, unarmed, unafraid, and eager to help others in need. Be not the aggressor. Be like Micah Flick.

Business as Usual

© ElectronicDesign.com

How is it that the Dow, NASDAQ, and New York Stock Exchange finish the week on an upswing after the monumental tragedy in Las Vegas less than a week ago? Hell, how are they still open? And how, in God's name, does our CBS television affiliate find it appropriate to run an advertisement for a local shooting range, right after a sobering memorial piece on Sunday Morning? Seriously. Now, I don't expect the economy to come grinding to a halt after any devastating event, but I think it should. Business as usual is supposed to offer some kind of comfort to us when our faith is shaken, but in reality it only comes off as disrespectful.

Mass shootings themselves have become something of business as usual, the periodic output of a culture and society that suffers from sicknesses we refuse to address in any meaningful sense. We have an economy increasingly based on suffering, death, and fear of both. As long as there is profit to be made from prescribing drugs, guns, and other products in response to personal and social cataclysm, that is what we will continue to do, business as usual. We'll see more ads for Zoloft and lawyers and life insurance and yes, firearms. "Have you been injured in a mass shooting? If so, call (insert your local law partners here)."

That is the basic problem, of course. We insist that the economy (business if you will) and the government, cure our ills. Legislation and products and services are how we handle everything else, so why won't they work in these cases of catastrophic violence? I would argue it is because commerce really is not solving anything. It is creating and perpetuating economic inequality, raising personal and collective stress into the stratosphere, and dividing our society in every conceivable way in the interest of promoting exclusivity, luxury, and lifestyles we are supposed to aspire to but that in reality are devoid of anything spiritually and emotionally fulfilling. Business as usual is the business of making you feel inferior while making empty promises that you can run with the rich and famous if you only invest your money in "this."

Meanwhile, our government will conduct business as usual, too, because the business of government continues to be insuring not the welfare of our citizenry, but the "wealthfare" of corporations and industry. The deathcare industry certainly gets a boost with every terroristic act, and then gun sales soar because we are conditioned to believe that if we are armed, then we won't be a victim the next time. Wow, we really didn't learn a thing from the kindergarten playground, did we?

The new bully on the block is still the old one: the gun lobbyist, the oil and gas tycoon, the climate change denialist, the bully-pulpit President, the pharmaceutical industry that profits from our misery, and on and on and on. We don't get the results we want, the results we need, as long as we let them all run rampant. We can no longer elect people to office who are not like us. We need to elect our neighbors, our literal neighbors next door, and the coworkers we admire who demonstrate leadership with compassion, respect, cooperation and compromise. People who are not so far removed from our circumstance that they can afford to ignore us.

The cure for stopping massacres like this is....us. No one else is going to do it for us. Remember Smokey the Bear's slogan? "Only you can prevent forest fires." It still rings true, and it applies to more than just those wildland conflagrations. It means fires in every other sense, too.

The fire next time....could be worse if we don't manage the forest of humanity with the proper compassion and care it needs and deserves. Products don't work. Hugs, handshakes, generosity both financial and social, and participation in your community. Those are things that work, we just need to do them more often. Tweet the positive, the non-product ideas. Post the pictures of your community garden. Let your neighbor know you care. Let us not all be where we are now, with this overriding sense of being misplaced, dropped in a selfish, fearful, and wealth-obsessed society, determined to be relentlessly marching on, Business. As. Usual.