Insecurity

My radio shares more sordid details. Another school shooting, more children... dead.

Children. Sometimes children murdering children. Sometimes adults murdering children. Sometimes children murdering adults.

There is a common thread here, and that common thread is insecurity.

For my money, insecurity is one of the most powerful forces on this planet, a compulsion to be. To be seen favourably, to be simply one among many, to fit in with one's peers, and not the opposite... to be singled out, to be ostracised, to be put down.

Our social complexity embraces our young from the moment of their birth. Every interaction produces learned conditioning in that child, and in adults as well... we are learning and conditioning from birth until death.

We learn how to communicate. We learn laughter that is happy, we learn laughter that is harmless, and we learn laughter that springs from the discomfort of another. We single out those different, because that difference might be visible. Subconsciously, we single out out of our own insecurity, and out of our own need to avoid being the target of someone singling us out.

Each of us will perceive these things within our own understanding of the world. One person can shrug it off, another will be enraged. One has learned to channel, another is consumed by it.

I've done the insecurity thing, my whole life was one big insecure mess held together by a will to survive, and my optimistic glue. Look to the future... past there... past that other obstacle as well... to what lie beyond. I'm a passive creature, but even my passivity took out others as things finally came to one sorry focal point.

So the news shares yet another sad tale. Yanno, there are lessons here, beyond the let's get tough and get these people shouts. It's about why insecurities abound. It's about ignoring things like bullying and taunting. It's about seeing nothing wrong with putting down whole classes of people, of singling out visible or expressed differences, and jumping all over them.

Some of us rationalise; some strike back. By that time, it's too late. As I recall, each of these recent events has carried story of someone who felt slighted or put down. Our society really needs to take a closer look at this, we need to study, and learn and make sure we see the put downs, and we see the receptions they get. On both sides of this issue... we need to work.