This I Believe

Today a dozen people died between the pages of a newspaper. They were sick, they died of old age, they were in accidents, they were murdered brutally, they killed each other. Today a hundred people died inside a television screen. They were actors, gored up for fun. Today two other people died inside a television screen. They were school students, murdered by a deranged classmate.

Today a million people, paper people, crumbled into ash piles. Today a million broken people held their heads in their hands and melted. Today a million angry people hurt ten other million people. Today the world looked at humanity and, seeing the misfortunes we visit upon ourselves, winked solemnly, closing an eye of divine compassion against the people.

The world leaves us to our brutality. When the sun rises, it does not bring with it mercy from our own horrors. The golden rays casting across earth’s horizon do not feed the paper people, do not calm the violent people, do not heal the broken people. The course of natural events holds in itself no latent redemption. The chaotic paths of world’s tangible forces do not converge in sympathy. In all the cruelty, no pattern emerges yielding compassion. That is why I believe in love.

My definition of love is incredibly simple, self-evident, yet I find its implications and manifestations staggeringly vast. Love is this: Respect every person and be as kind to them as you possibly can. They may not have earned your respect and they may reject your kindness, but you are patient and kinder still. Ultimately, this is all we can do. The world spins on an axis begetting endless horror, and we cannot stop these horrors any more than we can slow the axis’s spin. All we can do is give to each other without reservation.

To attempt to live nobly as I have described, with pure love, changes human society very little. The love I daily attempt is not smeared between the pages of the newspaper or flashed on the television set. Perhaps subtly, through infinite tiny acts of love, we can send positive ripples through human society. This is a hopeful thought, though, and probably a delusion—an act of love may be just as fleeting and meaningless as yesterday’s altercation between a married couple, or a murder the day before that, and it is certainly less public. But just as in loving I do not hope to meaningfully alter the course of history, nor am I seeking recognition. I choose to love because not to would to be complacent in the natural and inevitable regression to brutality and callousness.

So the most delicate concept I can imagine becomes the simplest upon reflection: Hate, in every manifestation miniscule and massive, is humanity’s thoughtless state. We can be complacent and allow hate, we can be willfully hateful, or we can love with every conceivable force of will. I have chosen love.