Beauty

As the saying goes, “a few bad apples can spoil the bunch.” The underlying idea is that you can have a basket of crunchy, delicious apples, but the mere presence of a rotten one can ruin all of them. The aftermath of the shootings in Las Vegas and Texas had me constantly harping back to this saying.

“Why?” you may wonder. After devastating events like these, when I turn on the television, or pick up a newspaper, I am bombarded with notions like ‘these events signaling the demise of our culture’. While for me, my first thought was for the families of the victims of these horrific events and how another human being could commit such horrific acts.

But then I thought more, as sappy as it may sound, human beings are beautiful and while these isolated horrible events may skew our outlook, I implore you to see through this fog to humanity. Don’t let some ‘bad apples ruin the batch’.

During this time you may hear people from the left or right claim that this is either a gun control or mental health issue, but do not forget that these are the same people who gave such wondrous gifts as human flight, or produced moving words such as, “to be or not to be: that is the question.”[1]

I, by no means, wish to belittle the tragic events from these past several months, but I do hope to remind everyone reading this that while some people may commit some ugly and heinous acts, this is the same species that gave us poetry and music.

With this being the holiday season, our thoughts on who and what to give ‘thanks’ to is part of the tradition; for me, amidst all these horrific events, I will (counter-intuitively) give thanks to the 7.6 billion people living on this planet (minus 2). These accomplishments and feats are so numerous that me giving you specific examples here would be fruitless. Yes, these horrific events tell us that change must be undertaken. What that change is, is up to you.

But do not let the few ‘bad apples’ we witnessed in Las Vegas and Texas ruin our appreciation for the batch of humanity.

[1] Shakespeare, Hamlet