{image via ABC News}
I couldn’t just kick up this week and talk about our weekend and not say something about the mind-numbing amount of tragedy in the past week. It’s hard to even begin to process, not only the hate, mercilessness, and cruelty, but also the complete frailty and unpredictability of life. I feel like I’ve not only been rocked by the death of Chris Moore, someone I absolutely admired for his work in the CrossFit community, but of those poor souls lost in Orlando, and Christina Grimmie, who was shot at a meet and greet after a performance.
I don’t really share my feelings on social media all that much anymore. I definitely used to. The Internet used to be a much different place. You could scream out into the world and even if people disagreed with you, it was still somewhat constructive. Now, there is no talking, and it’s so negative and hate-filled I can’t even physically bear to look at it. I don’t want to add to that in any way, and I definitely don’t want it creeping into my own life. I never thought I’d be that person who “filters” their reality, but it’s really the only way I can emotionally find my bearings.
But I still have opinions. I still watch, listen, and add to my worldview. But I’m still sensitive. I’m still passionate. And I couldn’t let the weekend pass without just being openly sad somewhere.
Because it’s just fucking terrible. It’s sad and unfair that Chris Moore is gone and the world will not benefit from many more projects from a passionate, driven, and artistically beautiful human being. It’s beyond unfair that his wife and two kids don’t have their husband and father, and it’s unfair that his life was tragically so short at the moment it was about to go next level to his next big project.
If you didn’t know of Chris Moore, I implore you to jump onto Barbell Shrugged, Barbell Buddha, or Barbell Business and just listen. I’ve posted his stuff here before, it was always top shelf, and he definitely made a lot of people feel more at home in CrossFit with his own story, and his way of approaching training. More recently, he was telling so many amazing stories and doing a lot of editorial. His book recommendations will keep me busy for years, and he’s definitely impacted me in so many ways. You can donate to help his family and hopefully see some of his projects finished, I implore you to do so.
Guns. Ugh. I think it’s abhorrent that we’ve allowed the very obvious problem of our nation’s obsession with guns, romanticized violence, and defense of the 2nd amendment to go on this long with so many lives lost. The 2nd amendment was written at a time when guns could barely get a single shot off, let alone hit a target. It meant the right to protect, and in no way should encompass assault weapons with multi-round magazines. That’s common sense. Basic. Common. Sense.
Even further, there is so much money in the gun lobby, that scientists and researchers can’t even STUDY gun crime. We have no capability to prevent people from obtaining guns who are actively being watched by agencies or have been on lists. I find that incomprehensible and indefensible, no matter what your argument for X gun you apparently can’t live without. My feelings are that prayers and thoughts are meaningless if we continue to say with our inaction that these people’s lives meant less than owning a gun. But lets face it, I think there is a great number of people who care so little for humanity, it does come down to that.
But to a fault, I am not one of those people. I am horribly sensitive and affected by everything. And for the past week I’ve done nothing but put my own face, or that of my own family, on the lives of people who are hurting so very badly right now. What if it was my daughter who just lost her father, or my phone holding the last terrified texts from my child or husband as they were taken from me, from this world.
It just hurts almost too much to bear sometimes. And I needed to say that somewhere. Please donate to help the victims of the shooting at Pulse in Orlando.
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