If "Life is a Party", Does that Mean I'll Have to Go Home?

"Man Sets Himself on Fire After Fight Over Sword"…….

It's true.  We all have to go home.  No-one gets to stay at the party forever.  Not even you or I.  And damn it, this is a GREAT PARTY!!!!  I don't want to leave, and it just seems like more friends keep showing up!  But on Wednesday night, one of these friends who I recently reconnected with, made his exit….went home.  And the party isn't nearly as lively as it was a day earlier.  Or a month ago….or a year ago….or a decade ago….

I've been thinking lately (dangerous) about all my acquaintances, friends, and family who have relatively recently left the planet, and left me (us) here to "party on, Garth!", and the myriad ways they have made their grand exits: Motorcycle wreck, suicide, pulmonary illness, cancer, cancer, cancer, infection from too many surgeries in a row, aneurysm, stroke, heart attack, rock climbing fall, old age, cancer, cancer, and more cancer, cycling accident….There's even a book you can buy at the gift shop at the Grand Canyon, devoted solely to all the different ways people have died there.  And of course, I have it in my personal library.  

Because I find death at least as interesting as birth.  I think of it as being birthed somewhere else, just as we were birthed into this life.  Of course, the reality is that I have absolutely no clue "what happens" to me when that which I need to be alive on this planet stops functioning.  I didn't have a clue "what will happen" to me when I was in my mother's womb, either.  My comfort in any of this is to come to this party, visit the buffet table of human life, see what's there, partake of the things I know I like, maybe try a few new things (I'm really not big on that, by the way….my huge loss, I'm sure), go through time doing as little damage as possible, and then….making my exit in some surprising-to-me way.

Barry was a friend, a loving father, and devoted husband, and I wish I had bumped into him more often during the party.  I was off in some other room, chatting and gabbing and partying with others for a long time, and came back into his circle only recently.  And he was there to welcome me back, as though no time had really passed.

So I look around at the party.  Another person has gone home.  The party is a lot quieter, and getting thinner.  My husband keeps telling me, "You are ALWAYS the last one to leave the party!  C'mon, let's GO already!"  That's right.  I am.  

And that's what I wish for all my remaining friends and family:  May you be the last ones to leave the party.

RIP, Barry McCall.  We loved having you here and are GLAD you could make it!

The Reality of Safety

Another tragic gun accident splashes across my Yahoo newsfeed, and I’m transported to that place in my head where the gun control debates live.   Only this time, I just can’t shake the sadness of the event: a 29 year old mother, shot dead while shopping in a Walmart with a loaded gun in her special purse made for concealing firearms, but which was accessed by her 2-year old while the purse was momentarily unattended.   This is so tragic on so many levels, it would be disingenuous to discuss it in terms of gun control.

Instead, I asked myself, “What makes a person feel so afraid for their lives that they feel the need to carry a loaded gun into a retail store?”  Here is a worthy example.  My friend and former classmate lives in a Quonset hut above the arctic circle far from civilization and thus any available help  (she has recently become a reality TV star on NatGeo’s Life Below Zero), completely on her own at the mercy of the elements and any wolves, bears, etc., that she happens to encounter.  Is her daily environment dangerous enough to warrant carrying a gun at all times?  Let’s just say that the last time she put her gun down to fill up her water tank in the river, she suffered a nearly fatal attack by a brown bear.  So yes, the reality and her perception of her dangerous environment are congruent.  Yesterday, my husband was at a PetSmart in one of the lowest crime rate areas in Las Vegas, and the customer in front of him had a gun in his holster at his side.  Is his daily environment, including his trip to a local pet food store, so dangerous that if he left his gun in his car, his life would be in mortal danger?  Well, thousands of patrons and I visit this store each year and the number of deaths occurring there do not bear out his perception of danger.  Therefore, the reality of his daily environment and his perception of its danger are not congruent.  

This isn’t about guns, per se.  It is about the disconnect that exists between the reality of our daily routine and how safe it actually is, and the perception that our lives are in imminent danger at every moment.   

Consider the actual fact that the world is becoming a less violent place overall.  Consider the biological fact that human beings have learned to coexist better than any other primates.  Consider your own daily routine and how often you are actually confronted with a potentially life threatening situation (in my 23 years of appraising, I have felt this way exactly 2 times).  Now, compare these things with the perceptions you have about how dangerous your environment is.  If they are incongruent, what is causing that disconnect?  It actually reminds me of when I was afraid of the dark until someone would turn on the lights and all the things that were scaring me would vanish.  The reality of my overall safety was illuminated.

Nowhere is it more obvious than out here in the west that we live in a gun culture.  I’m not so interested in how that started, but am more interested in how it is perpetuated.  I have many friends who are responsible gun owners and vehemently speak of the benefits and necessity of owning them.  Some have conceal/carry permits, some would like to get their permit.  Each and every person speaks of their need for carrying a firearm due to the unsafe nature of their daily environment and having a gun would make their environment safer.  And yet, I live in the same environment and I just don’t see it or feel it.   So I ask myself, “Am I naïve, or are they paranoid and fearful?”  What is the reality of our daily environment and what is our perception of our daily environment and do they coincide?  If not, what is shaping our perception?   And does an incongruent perception create a self-fulfilling prophecy?  

This is not an argument for or against gun control.  It is merely an inquiry about the source of the disconnect that happens to so many of us, who live in such a rich, vibrant, and safe country when we begin to be filled with fear to such a degree that we feel the need to carry a gun whenever we venture out into the society that we hold to be the envy of the world.