I would like to thank my Internet provider for helping me to start each day with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and dread. There’s nothing quite like waking up, taking the dogs out into the backyard, making some coffee and then firing up my laptop only to see a feel-good headline such as, “Bride Dies in Groom’s Arms During First Dance.” Huh? Then, of course, I have to click on the link—a photo of the joyous couple in all their wedding finery—snapped mere moments before the bride’s weak heart gave out like the sputtering engine of an antique biplane, and she crumpled in her new husband’s arms on the dance floor like a rag doll. Orange juice, a bran muffin and tragedy—it’s the breakfast of champions. And just when I think it can’t get any worse/better, I wake the next day to the following bit of delightful news splashed across the appropriately named “splash page”: “Therapist Hacked to Death with Meat Cleaver.” This delightful “good morning” is accompanied by not just photos, but actual surveillance video of the mystery attacker entering the ill-fated doctor’s office building. Grainy, snuffy footage of the blurry murderer walking in and then knocking on the door of the unsuspecting woman who has dedicated her life to helping others. Why not just greet me tomorrow morning with 48-point bold Helvetica letters that ask, “What’s the Point of Living?”

What in God’s name is going on in this country? The brief swell of hope I feel after listening to Barack Obama speak bursts like a bubble when I learn of yet another child getting caught in gang crossfire, yet another man killing his pregnant wife/girlfriend, yet another student shooting at a school (four times this week), yet another U.S. soldier committing suicide. Something is terribly wrong, and it’s really getting to me. I realize that bad news is what grabs people’s attention. I am familiar with the phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads” when it comes to news, but this is different. There doesn’t seem to be any respect for life—human or otherwise—anymore.

I see very little genuine morality. Instead I see bullshit religion. Go get another tattoo of Christ, you hypocritical murdering gang member. Bomb another clinic, you right-wing right-to-life lunatic. Making abortion impossible will only lead to more dead pregnant women at the hands of their panicked partners. Send more young people to Iraq, George W. Bush—and then make them fight without the proper equipment, sign up for yet another tour of duty and then ignore their mental health when—and if—they finally come back home. And if they come home in a body bag, make sure you send their grieving family a bill for it.

This is how animals act right before an earthquake. They run away or they get vicious—flight or fight. This is what happens when people see no future for themselves. If you have no voice, just blare your car stereo and/or spraypaint on a wall. If no one respects you, demand respect through violence. If you have no place in this world, then fight and kill over territory. When all you see on the news—day in and day out—is people losing their jobs and people losing their homes, then you see no future. Work and work and work and then there’s no Social Security when it’s finally your time to retire. Pay and pay and pay for health insurance and then have the word “denied” stamped across your future in red ink by a heartless corporation.

I don’t know how to end this column, but I know that it takes work to focus on what is beautiful in this hideous world. The most revolutionary thing we can each do at this time is to simply be kind. As I have said before, what’s the point of trying to save the planet if you can’t even offer a smile to the person who just made your half-caf fat-free soy latte? In this world of brutality and cruelty and injustice, the only thing we have control over is whether to be a nice person or not. So stop texting for five minutes and make eye contact with another human being before it’s too late.

illustration by www.glenhanson.com