Society

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" 
- Jiddu Krishnamurti 

We live in a world where a 20 year old boy for no know reason walks into a school full of 6 year olds and shoots 20 of them and 6 grown ups. Where a mother drops her 3 and 5 year old daughters off on a New York street with extra diapers, also for no apparent reason. Where  a 23 year old woman in India dies after a violent gang rape. Where a 10 month old baby is raped by her uncle. We find babies in dumpsters, toilets and left out in parks. Or you can just deposit him/her in a drop box if you feel you can't look after him/her.

How has our world become so negligent of those who are the most vulnerable? The little ones who we are supposed to look after? The world we live in is just getting worse day by day. You can read any news website, in any country, in our sick world and it will tell you the same. The world is full of sick bastards.

I read these articles with tears in my eyes most of the time - I actually don't like reading, listening or watching news for that reason exactly. I can't understand the mentality with which these people operate. The mind of a rapist or murderer is a horribly fascinating thing (with extra emphasis on horribly). Why do people do these things? Is it a sense of entitlement? A feeling of power they get from submitting another person to their will or power?

We all know that the victim is someone's child - but we so often forget that the perpetrator is also someone's son/daughter, someone who also had high hopes for their child. Someone fed that child, hugged him and maybe even loved him. Do you feel failure as a parent if your child turns into one of these perps? Do you wonder where you went wrong? Do you also wonder how his mind now got so bent that his sense of right and wrong is so terribly affected? Does he even know right from wrong? What separates the criminals from the rest of us - or do we all have the capacity to commit horrific crimes no matter how seemingly nice we look?

If we all have the capacity for good I assume we have a similar capacity for evil. So what triggers a person to display either of these attributes? I don't know.

In my first year of high school our principle told us a story that has forever stayed with me. He told a story of two brothers who had the same upbringing and the same alcoholic dad, who never cared much for them or anything in the world. The one brother made a complete mess of his life and also became an alcoholic and the other brother became a successful business man - never drank a drop in his life. When asked why they think they turned out the way they did, both brothers answered "because of my father".

We live in a sick world. Let's try our best not to add grief to it, but to rather add a smile or an encouraging word wherever we can.