Musings on Entropy

I find it disheartening and distressing when I hear news like this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29623587/?gt1=43001

It happened with VA Tech, it happened with Columbine, it's happening now in Alabama. It happens on a larger scale with men like Omar Al-Bashir. And I hate it.

I hate how easy it is to destroy something. I think this is a fundamental flaw in the universe: the fact that it is easy and immediate to kill, to destroy, to take away, to injure, to break, and that it is often difficult and slow to grow, to build, to repair, to create, to heal, to restore. I know I'm small-minded in this. There are many philosophers who could probably point out that such thinking is not big-picture, and quite flawed.

But I hate it.

I hate the thought that I could so very easily get a gun and just drive around shooting people. Maybe because I was angry, or because I was afraid, or just because I didn't care enough about human life for it to matter to me. But really, why? I doubt this man was someone who could be considered clinically insane. I think he was a normal person like you and me, and that choices he made and lies he chose to believe led him to cause this bloody tragedy.

I guess that's what it comes down to: choices. And even though it's hard, and though the system as a whole is unfairly skewed toward those who seek destruction, I guess we have to keep slogging along in our efforts to do what's right and to spread love and hope. It's frustrating using words when they have bullets, giving books when they take lives, petitioning lawmakers when they take the law into their own hands.

I just have to remember that it's worth it, and that I am not alone.