Going out in a so-called blaze of ‘glory’ not your only option

Dear Troubled One,

Just want you to know you have options. You don’t have to go out like this. You don’t have to go out at all.

You don’t have to pack your anxiety and anger and unresolved issues into an AR-15 to feel powerful.

You don’t have to blast holes into small children to get even.

You don’t have to become a monster in your community to be seen and heard and, finally, understood by the world.

There’s another way. Many other ways, in fact.

You can channel your rage and hopelessness into something productive, something eternal, something that may even help you feel better while helping others see you, hear you and get you.

And just maybe, instead of becoming a headline and then a name on a long list of detested psychopaths, you can become synonymous with something that lives on, something creative, poignant, larger than life.

Instead of your legacy being that of blood and horror and human guts sprayed across a classroom or a mall or a church or a bank, you can choose to unload your traumatic energy into art or literature or music or sports.

Consider Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig von Beethoven. The list of sufferers turned genius producers is long and well known.

Look, we know you are in pain.

But we don’t know your story. So tell us.

Tell us in a way that makes us want to listen, not cover our eyes and run in terror.

And we will listen, because many of us have anxiety, fear and anger too. Many of us have been betrayed or hurt or disappointed by the world. Many of us have struggles and inner turmoil and childhood persecutions that just won’t go away.

You are hardly alone in that camp.

And yet so, so many of us do not choose to hurt others in a misguided attempt to alleviate our pain.

All humans hurt at some time and all have the capacity to react in hurtful ways. But all of us also have the option to forgive what we can and channel what we can’t into something that both brings relief and helps others understand where we are coming from.

Far better to go down in history a creator, a builder, a healer or a genius than some rando shooter with anger issues.

Help us see the person inside that bundle of misconceptions, and help yourself in the process.

Bring forth your pain in a way in which others can relate and perhaps alleviate.

Be a gift to the world, not the world’s worst nightmare.

You don’t have to do something to someone else that is far worse than what was done to you in order to be validated.

I’m appealing to you, oh troubled one, because attempts to appeal to those with the ability and authority to save you — and us — from yourself refuse to address the problem. They are too busy shielding their rights and their payoffs to give a hoot about the likes of you, or us.

Still, just because they’re willing to sell you a gun doesn’t mean you have to buy it.

One last thing, if it’s glory you want, forget about spraying bullets. It’s been done. So. Many. Times. In fact, it is so commonplace that who even remembers the names of any mass shooters?

We only remember their horror. Because of their choices, we block them from our minds. We repel them from our memories. We disdain them.

If you want to be revered and remembered and respected, give instead of take. Contribute through healing, through productivity, through growth. And let the world embrace you.

Sincerely,