Boston

Organized road races for runners have always felt special to me.  Though I’ve never run a full marathon, I have run in many shorter races, and I’ve also provided support for other runners on race day.  The events are held on public roads and can be a major inconvenience for the local residents.  Nonetheless there is almost always a good spirit in the air.  There aren’t many such events where we set aside differences of class and race, smile a lot, help each other, and act like real community members. We leave our jackets and water bottles unattended and trust that no one will take them.  Maybe the feat of a human being (no equipment, no machines) running a long distance as fast as possible is just so obviously difficult and painful that we can’t help but empathize and therefore support.  Or maybe those that object simply go elsewhere for the day.

 

So the bombings at this year’s Boston Marathon are particularly poignant for me.  Such a shame that an event that consistently brings people together should be tarnished with chaos, grief, and sadness.  Security for an event held on the streets over 26 miles is a real problem.  At least in a stadium there are gates where people can be searched.  Here there can only be a significant police presence and large doses of common sense.

But on the other hand let’s not lose perspective.  Bombings have long been a part of our history; many of the worst in our past were deadly and remain unsolved.  Only since WWII do we seem to expect that such things cannot happen here.  Well, they always have, and they probably always will.  American exceptionalism is an illusion.  We’re just as vulnerable as any other country, and if we look around the world we realize that we’ve dodged a good deal of our fair share of political violence at home in recent years.

On the other hand, in the US over 100 people a day are killed in traffic accidents.  Another 100 die each day from firearms.  250 die every day from taking prescription drugs (as directed).  These are not natural deaths; they arise from human action or lack of action.  Yet we’ve come to accept them as unremarkable and inevitable, though they need not be, at least not to that extent. But when a small number die in a terror incident and the media run with it 24/7 for days, an entire city is paralyzed, and we all scratch our heads wondering what’s wrong with the world.  Terror just makes for a better narrative, and our thirst for narrative cannot be quenched.  Humans have probably always been addicted to narrative; it helps us to make sense of a confusing world.  But now technology gives us the opportunity to have stories at our fingertips at every moment.  And we can ‘enjoy’ everyone else’s narrative, too, not just our own.  In fact, we often just about stop living our own life because we’re too busy following someone else’s, or at least the version that that person is exposing, no matter how real or unreal that might be.

And as we eavesdrop on the amped up stories of others, the temptation is to view our own experiences in that bright stage light.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the drama.  One Watertown resident reported be ‘terrorized’ by the helicopters hovering over her neighborhood.  Well, I get it, but how much is her reaction conditioned by those stories, movies, and news reports of Apache attack helicopters in real war zones? We can get trapped in a feedback loop of drama and exaggeration that doesn’t seem to have an end.  An entire city is shut down in fear of a 19-year old who is bleeding and hiding in a boat?  Try living in Afghanistan or in Palestine.  There you justifiably wonder if that helicopter will blow up your house in the next minute.  And your fear is well grounded because that just happened to your friend down the street last week.  At some point you realize that you just have to go on with life, accept the risks involved, be courageous.

Facebook gives us the opportunity to transform countless simple everyday events into high drama.  I wonder if over time that makes it more difficult for us to differentiate between what matters and what doesn’t?  Can we tell the difference anymore?  Do we even want to?  Language is probably our only useful tool for maintaining perspective, a real-time view of our own lives which is realistic, humble, gracious, and meaningful. But language itself is being abused and devalued every day around us, and is perhaps losing its ability to grant us that view?  It’s our only chance at an ‘examined’ life, our only opportunity to see ourselves live as we live.  I wonder if a new kind of ‘language obesity’ is taking hold?  Modern fiction would suggest that is the case, witness much of DFW, for example, or White Noise, or The Flame Alphabet. We defend the need for fiscal austerity, and we understand that we must eat less and eat better.  Maybe it’s time for verbal austerity.  Let’s keep our own narratives in perspective.  Let’s not binge on media.  Let’s give ourselves space and time to think.  ‘Just say no?” At times perhaps ‘enough for right now’ would be helpful.