I thought it might be good to share the things that I overhear thanks to public transportation. Sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's heart warming, and sometimes it's extremely annoying. I found out about Justice Scalia's passing thanks to the casual conversation of a group of people who were reading through their news feed and noted that a Supreme Court Justice had passed away. Another person approached them and asked who it was. Upon finding out that it was Scalia, he said something along the lines of oh that's good, hastily adding that he wasn't celebrating the fact that someone had died, of course. I came home and checked on a news website that will remain unnamed and the focus was already on who should nominate a replacement with the presidential elections fast approaching.
I'm writing this sequence of events down because I had quite a strong reaction to it - perhaps more so because of the fact that we just recently lost Charles (also unexpectedly) and it was so hard to deal with and process. Only now, weeks later, are those of us who were on the fringes of his friend group able to somewhat acknowledge without major difficulty that he is gone. Do we live in such a messed up world that political games trump the fact that we are human? Where is the true empathy and the outpouring of support for his family and friends? I know that these are perhaps unreasonable expectations of the political arena and even of my generation of millennials for whom the stereotype of self-absorption rings unfortunately true. And yet. I want to ask myself - does this have to be? I may not be able to change the lives of strangers on the street, but for me, my friends, my community - can we make a difference at least in the lives of those around us? Can we take a moment to suspend our participation in this ridiculous rat race, and actually care about people?
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