It’s impossible to imagine the terror of runners, those waiting for them to finish the Boston Marathon and anyone in the vicinity of the explosions yesterday. As I write this authorities don’t know who set off the blasts that killed 3 people and injured dozens more.
I could write a dozen pages about how I feel about terrorists and probably say nothing new. But I’d rather hand today’s post over to Patton Oswalt, a comic I adore and an actor known for his roles on King of Queens and Two and a Half Men. This is what he wrote yesterday, after the explosions. Forgive the salty language. He’s a potty mouth, but a brilliant one.
“Boston. Fucking 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.”
Visit Patton’s website: www.pattonoswalt.com
This is one of the many times I’ve said, “Boy, I wish I wrote that.” What a brilliant perspective, and so eloquent. Thanks for blogging and tweeting Patton’s thoughts and words.