Human Monsters

Last night I was wrestling with a story on happy tears, and how to convey through words what that feels like. This morning, after watching the news over the events in Las Vegas, I am filled with tears of sadness and anger. The fact that there has been another terrorist attack in our country in the form of a mass shooting baffles me. I can’t comprehend what would possess a person to acquire that kind of firepower and use it against innocent people. Those people were gathered together to experience one of the joys that humanity has to offer: music. If you know me on a personal level, or even just in passing, you know that one of the key components to my personality is my love and passion for music. Am I a huge fan of country music, or Jason Aldean in particular? No, but I certainly appreciate what got people to go to the concert. It ignites something in them that they don’t fully understand, but it gets them going, moving, singing, dancing. It gets them living. I don’t think I will ever understand what could make someone want to kill, and I don’t really want to. Am I a bad writer if I refuse to accept that some people have that desire? How can I ever write a character like that if I refuse to understand their psyche? Is my naïveté worth being taken seriously in this profession? Or maybe I just decide not to think of those killers as people. They are monsters more terrifying than those in your closet or under your bed. Sully and Mike Wazowski only wish they could scare like them. They are terrifying because they look like us. How do we fight them? How do we combat that kind of fear, that kind of terror, that kind of inhumanity? The answer is simple. We have to be the best version of humanity. We have to love one another and care for one another. Because the monsters are watching, and they prey on our fear. That is their sustenance. We. Will. Starve them.