I am always reluctant to share these thoughts, because on the one hand, I feel that people need optimism, and not reflections of despair.

Also, when people put out posts that are "depressing" or "despairing", people then ask if you're "ok" / expressing "concern" thinking / fearing something deeper.

Don't worry about that, and sorry to be despairing. I know expect / want levity and humor from me, but not feeling it today.

Sean Strickland (an MMA fighter) put out a video after Kirk's assassination, saying something to the effect that he heard the video was out there, and almost felt excited to see it. Something along those lines (very loosely paraphrasing). But the idea was not one of encouragement, rather one of introspecting at what a sociopath he had become . the internet had made him in to. A follow-up tweet he made: https://x.com/SStricklandMMA/status/1965860700557070755

I think he was saying it with some introspection / self critique, not boasting about his awesomeness for feeling it.

It's the insight you can have when you have grown up prior to the internet dehumanizing humans (literally - reducing them to avatars), and can appreciate your evolution as an adult.

It's not the evolution a kid has growing up in this age. They never had the prior-to-internet experience, so they even lack Sean's level of introspection as to how he has devolved as a human in terms of human-to-human sensitivity.

I was talking my girls. Ethan is not at school, so I know what has been his exposure to the murder, and the reaction of those around him.

I asked my oldest how her peers reacted. I know my daughter was horrified, as were her friends. I know all of her friends, and they are beautiful, moral people with good parents, families and/or religion in their lives.

But my kid was telling me how her peers (NOT FRIENDS) were reveling in the murder. Sharing the video.. Gawking at it. Saying they don't care, that Charlie was awful, that he got what he deserved.

A level or emotional and human detachment because to them, Charlie wasn't a real person. He was a character on the internet. An avatar.

And the video was just an action scene from GTA. It wasn't real to them because they lack the experience of human connection, and know only of social media detachment / objectification / dehumanization in the literal sense.

And when she was telling me of their reactions, I felt true despair and understood the evil of growing up in the digital age, with no executive functions developed prior to.

I tell my kids "I can dictate on the phone because I know how to spell already. You don't get to dictate as an alternative to learning how to spell".

We are entering the generation where children brought up on the dehumanizing elements of the internet don't even have the basic appreciation of the importance of the lives of those they view through their screens.

Add to that the amount of SSRI's I know these kids are on (again, I know my kids' friends).

Add to that the level of despair - genuine, deep nihilistic despair - of this same generation, and I, for the first time in a while, felt a darkness for the future that I haven't felt since 9/11, and since Butler PA (until I saw Trump stand back up).

I see people reveling in Charlies murder, and I feel sick.

Then I see people praising Charlie's life, urging others to live with the same courage. But Charlie's dead. Forever. His legacy will remain for those who cared about him. And for the rest, they will move on to the next news story, the next incident that will allow them to express their sociopathic nihilistic hatred.

I don't know where this goes. The people saying "this will create a thousand more Charlies". Maybe. But then what?

A thousand more Charlie's in a sea of nihilism that is getting deeper and deeper.

Have faith.

Focus on the things you can change.

This too shall pass.

Cliches for the living to cope with despairing tragedies.

Will got for a jog. Or a bike ride. Seeing alligators is a good distraction, and I am still hopeful I will see an alligator eating a dear, or a python eating a gator, or a gator jumping out of the water to snatch a heron. Nature being nature.

And exercise.

Peace.

Written as a stream of consciousness and not proof-reading.