It seems a bit absurd, as I sit here in my paradise of a home in Encinitas, CA, to write about the tragedy that happened yesterday in Las Vegas. And yet, it seems equally absurd to not write about it, as if to pretend that it didn’t happen. Certainly it seems absurd to write about anything else. And so, in this space, I’ll put together my thoughts about what happened and why. And I think as good a place as any is to start with something I heard on the radio, a quote from the Mayor of Las Vegas, who - understandably - described the shooter, the gunman, as a “crazed lunatic” with “hate in his heart”. The thing is, I wish I could believe that. I wish I could believe it was just a nutso; just a nut job whose neurons simply fired in an inexplicable pattern. It would be nice to just say this was some crazy person because that implies that it’s not something we're likely to see again, and not something we need to understand. To label it that way means it’s not something we have to deal with or pull apart. But I don’t think I believe that. By all accounts, this man was never in trouble with the law. He had no history of violence or of psychological problems. His brother, who knows him best, says he would send his mother overly large boxes of cookies on her birthday. When I think about this man, the mental picture I get is of an old white guy. Maybe - and I suspect this is the case - a lonely old white guy. A rich, lonely old white guy with very little to do. Maybe he reads too much on the internet. Maybe he gambles too much. Maybe he drinks once in a while.
Thing is, most mornings I go to this McDonalds around the corner from me in sunny Encinitas, and if I’m there, at the right time, there’s a bunch of guys that sit at a big table and talk about the issues of the day - mostly politics. And of course I overhear what they say. Now, I don’t think any of these guys is going to go shoot up a country music concert. But then, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Nobody thought this guy was going to do that, either. Nothing these guys talk about is all that “crazy”. Nobody says anything about shooting the president. But what I do hear, often, is a sense of separation from the world. They seem lonely, more than anything. Lonely, and confused, and a little bit lost. Unsure what the world particularly wants of them. Many of them, I suspect, used to be very powerful. Encinitas is a wealthy community, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were CEOs, or lawyers, or doctors.
The Beatles said that “All You Need Is Love”. But I think, as I get older, that I disagree. Or, maybe, that I have a new definition of love. See, I think what most people need is two things: to be seen, and to be useful. Seen, and Useful. Useful and Seen. To be Seen is to be understood. It doesn’t mean to be agreed with, or to be coddled. To be Seen can mean to be challenged, to be pushed, to be disagreed with. But being Seen means that somebody, somewhere, is aware of your existence, of who you are, and values the fact that you exist. Often, the people that disagree with us the most are the best at Seeing us, because of course to disagree with someone you have to know what they believe. To be Unseen is to be treated like we don’t matter. The great tragedy of getting old is not that we are unloved, necessarily, it’s that we are Unseen. We don’t exist. And then, there is being Useful. To be Useful is to feel like you matter. To feel that there is a reason you are here. It doesn’t mean you have to be Useful by making money, or by building something; it means that someone, somewhere, cares that you exist and would be worse off if you didn’t. My vision of hell is not a place filled with fire; it’s a place filled with indifference. It is the curse of the Ghost from the Alistar Sims version of A Christmas Carol; doomed to walk the earth invisible, unable to help those we love.
I’m guessing, here, because obviously I don’t know this man. But I’d venture to say that when we come to understand him, one thing we’ll find is that he felt Unseen, and Unuseful. Invisible and/or impotent. Now, please understand: that is no excuse for taking up automatic weapons and shooting 400 innocent people. Nor is it a free pass for sensible gun laws. Clearly the Internet has a role here as well in preying on people who feel lonely. But jail, and gun laws, and censorship and the like will do nothing if we don’t solve the underlying disease, which is the lack of human connection, and especially the lack of human connection to the elderly. And - and let’s be honest here - the lack of human connection between men. Especially older men, but increasingly men of all ages.