It used to be that people dealt with survivor guilt in little bits. A stillborn child; the family grieved. A family lost in a fire; the village grieved. In wars, I suppose, there must have been a rather larger parcel of survivor guilt, but this guilt, until recently, must have been for nameless, faceless compatriots. It’s changed. And rather all of a sudden.

We are, each of us, on our lifeboat and riding a blood read sea. So long as tragedy is the exception, tragedy will be exponentially upon us. News scours the north, the east, the west, and the south and collects crime and murder and disaster and devastation like a backwards prism and beams it back at us, hard enough, concentrated enough to cut through our diamond souls. And while crime and murders are significantly down, their air time on the news is substantially up. I am not blaming the news media. Like any other commerce, the news is subject to supply and demand.

News is for the survivor. But this is a whole new level of survivor guilt. And when the sinking boat seems to be the whole world, it can be too much. Do not confuse me, I am not saying we shouldn’t feel blessed and I am not saying we should give up charity and empathy.

I will not feel guilty for surviving. I will count my blessings, sure. But, and this is as close to a resolution as I can manage, I will not piss away life. I will not squander time. There is already sparingly little time. It would be a shame to waste it. I will dance when I can. I will find joy when I can. I will not live only to continue. I will not live only to continue to complain. Or at least I will try.

It’s a miracle in the purest sense, in that it confounds all reason, that I’m alive in the first place. It’s a miracle too that I continue to live. So live I shall. Or I shall try my very best.

SS