To Personhood

Things happen.

Sometimes wonderful things happen, and people grab every bit they can, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a particularly unruly group of guests just after the piñata split open: all jabbing elbows and minor prizes.

Sometimes terrible things happen, but they do not happen to us, and so we hide. "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist..." We may blame the victims, because the alternative--that it truly wasn't their fault, that it could happen to us--is too awful to contemplate. It may even be happening to us, and we do not speak for we fear it will be worse if we do, or we simply believe is will be no better.

But we are social animals, are we not?

Sometimes horrible/glorious things happen, and they write a line of fire across your self. Sometimes it blazes so white-hot that you cannot imagine doing aught but following this, doing this, because you are saving something important. A soul, a species, a nation, a family, an individual. It hits, and there is a person who is you, who was not there twelve seconds ago.

Sometimes wonderful things happen, and people glory in them and share them, because that is what they choose to do. Good feels good. Some people need help, some search for those in need. There is not yet perfect symmetry, but what exists is beautiful.

Sometimes something truly awful, terrible, horrible occurs and all you can do for a moment is shatter inside, because everything you hinged on, every bit of your world, everything just did shatter.

And we turn, and we reach--

We come together. Forget religious barriers; even those who do not pray can appreciate coming together to share grief and hope. Forget race; we are all people and the lines blur more every generation. Forget these barriers you have built up; the world just shattered so the walls must have done. We hope together, wish together, despair together, stand with friends, lovers, strangers. We help those who are hurting, in all the myriad ways people can hurt.

Sometimes, the world shatters.

Every time, however gradually, we rebuild.