Open your eyes -- reflections about the shooting
You read the paper every day all summer and all you see is the same old stuff about the Middle East. You turn on the news for the past few days and they're still going on about the aftereffects of September 11th five years later. It's not like you're an ostrich with your head in the sand.
So you go on doing the same old things. Ok, so it's September, the glorious month of change; nothing is ever quite the same. But still, you're going through the motions, blissfully ignorant, living the same old routine, watching the same old things happen around you. And then you happen to burn out from being up 60 consecutive hours, sleep through an entire day, and when you wake up nothing is the same.
Ok, I don't mean to be melodramatic here, but honestly, what a day to choose to live under a rock. I guess the point of this whole convoluted opening is: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.
These things happen when you least expect it; most big things in life do. So I guess you just always have to keep your nose up, pay attention to the world around you. There's no excuse for any slack - the resources are plentiful and easy to access. News, the internet, people. If something important is going on in the world, it is a person's civic duty to know about it and to think about it. An informed, intelligent individual should not only know what's going on, but have opinions about it and, at least in some sort of way, be ready to respond. You have to be ready.
The only real way to be prepared in this chaotic world is to be truly aware of what's going on, both globally and in the more immediate environment. I'm talking about ascending to a higher level of consciousness, and not some sort of solitary philosophical refuge. On the contrary, I'm talking about really opening your eyes, achieving an acute perceptiveness to your surroundings. I'm talking about acknowledging and profiling people around you, noticing patterns, pinpointing anomalies, monitoring and interpreting behaviours, smelling the smoke or hearing the cry for help - using all your senses to give you as much information as possible.
There's no real excuse to daydream while you're out on the street. So many people out there are so self-involved, living in their safe little bubbles, that they remain ignorant to their surroundings. Sure, a person will see the traffic lights on the street, hear the siren of a fire engine whirling by, notice the odd attractive person on the other side of the street. But there is so much more information out there, staring us in the face, easily at our disposal, practically jumping into our laps like eager children desperate for attention, but we just don't open ourselves up to accept it.
Say you're walking home from a bar at night and you're a bit preoccupied. Sure, you're sober enough to avoid getting hit by a car, but maybe you're caught up thinking about a fight you had with your significant other and you don't notice the quiet footsteps creeping up behind you. If you were really listening, you might have heard the bastard when he was still a few feet back and had enough time to make a good run for it. But you didn't, and now you're beaten up and without a wallet.
It could even happen in broad daylight in a public, crowded place. You could be walking to or from school, thinking about something a prof said or talking to your buddies about your wild weekend. Maybe if your head was up, you'd notice the seriously troubled look in the eyes of an obviously maladjusted teen across walking by you down the street. The detachment, the blankness, the void of emotion. Then you might worry enough to drop a quick glance at the guy's hands in time to see him drawing a concealed knife from his pocket. Maybe you'll even have enough time to jump back before you get stabbed, or do something heroic and save someone else. But you didn't, you were too lost in your own world.
I'm guilty of all of the above, and I think most people are. I'm not saying tragedies are necessarily preventable, or that victims are in any way to blame - by all means they are not. What I am saying is that the world is a complex and dangerous place. We get spoilt living in such a cushy safe society and we all too easily forget to rely on our instincts, but we still have the potential to become deeply in touch with them and use them to our advantage. And I figure, if we have this potential, why not use it? Why not take advantage of the tools we're born with?
I see no viable excuse to the contrary, so it is my goal every day to try and become more conscious and informed than the day before. I feel this is my duty, my responsibility as a human being and an educated and priviledged member of society. It is easily within our means to make little changes in our lifestyles that allow us to be more in touch with the world. This is no novel idea. So it is time to do something about it.
So you go on doing the same old things. Ok, so it's September, the glorious month of change; nothing is ever quite the same. But still, you're going through the motions, blissfully ignorant, living the same old routine, watching the same old things happen around you. And then you happen to burn out from being up 60 consecutive hours, sleep through an entire day, and when you wake up nothing is the same.
Ok, I don't mean to be melodramatic here, but honestly, what a day to choose to live under a rock. I guess the point of this whole convoluted opening is: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.
These things happen when you least expect it; most big things in life do. So I guess you just always have to keep your nose up, pay attention to the world around you. There's no excuse for any slack - the resources are plentiful and easy to access. News, the internet, people. If something important is going on in the world, it is a person's civic duty to know about it and to think about it. An informed, intelligent individual should not only know what's going on, but have opinions about it and, at least in some sort of way, be ready to respond. You have to be ready.
The only real way to be prepared in this chaotic world is to be truly aware of what's going on, both globally and in the more immediate environment. I'm talking about ascending to a higher level of consciousness, and not some sort of solitary philosophical refuge. On the contrary, I'm talking about really opening your eyes, achieving an acute perceptiveness to your surroundings. I'm talking about acknowledging and profiling people around you, noticing patterns, pinpointing anomalies, monitoring and interpreting behaviours, smelling the smoke or hearing the cry for help - using all your senses to give you as much information as possible.
There's no real excuse to daydream while you're out on the street. So many people out there are so self-involved, living in their safe little bubbles, that they remain ignorant to their surroundings. Sure, a person will see the traffic lights on the street, hear the siren of a fire engine whirling by, notice the odd attractive person on the other side of the street. But there is so much more information out there, staring us in the face, easily at our disposal, practically jumping into our laps like eager children desperate for attention, but we just don't open ourselves up to accept it.
Say you're walking home from a bar at night and you're a bit preoccupied. Sure, you're sober enough to avoid getting hit by a car, but maybe you're caught up thinking about a fight you had with your significant other and you don't notice the quiet footsteps creeping up behind you. If you were really listening, you might have heard the bastard when he was still a few feet back and had enough time to make a good run for it. But you didn't, and now you're beaten up and without a wallet.
It could even happen in broad daylight in a public, crowded place. You could be walking to or from school, thinking about something a prof said or talking to your buddies about your wild weekend. Maybe if your head was up, you'd notice the seriously troubled look in the eyes of an obviously maladjusted teen across walking by you down the street. The detachment, the blankness, the void of emotion. Then you might worry enough to drop a quick glance at the guy's hands in time to see him drawing a concealed knife from his pocket. Maybe you'll even have enough time to jump back before you get stabbed, or do something heroic and save someone else. But you didn't, you were too lost in your own world.
I'm guilty of all of the above, and I think most people are. I'm not saying tragedies are necessarily preventable, or that victims are in any way to blame - by all means they are not. What I am saying is that the world is a complex and dangerous place. We get spoilt living in such a cushy safe society and we all too easily forget to rely on our instincts, but we still have the potential to become deeply in touch with them and use them to our advantage. And I figure, if we have this potential, why not use it? Why not take advantage of the tools we're born with?
I see no viable excuse to the contrary, so it is my goal every day to try and become more conscious and informed than the day before. I feel this is my duty, my responsibility as a human being and an educated and priviledged member of society. It is easily within our means to make little changes in our lifestyles that allow us to be more in touch with the world. This is no novel idea. So it is time to do something about it.