Time and time again we find ourselves asking the same questions. How could this happen? Why did this happen? How could he do that? Time and time again, I reflect on both the inhumanity, and the pure humanity of it all.

The same world that raised him up, raised me up. The same system that planted seeds of thought inside his head and heart, planted seeds in mine. The same society that fueled his beliefs, his aversions, and his desires, fuels mine.

Everything one human being is capable of lies within each and every one of us. Everything that he was capable of, I am also capable of.

Genius. Ignorance. Apathy. Empathy. Kindness. Compassion. Hatred. Idealism. Egoism. Righteousness. Condemnation. Love. Anger. Fearlessness. Paranoia. Strength. Fragility. Peacefulness. Imbalance. We are all, each of us, capable of all things.

We are all in this together, threads of the same cultural cloth, reared by the same world, systemized by the same system. We are all fundamentally, more similar than we are different.

And when we realize that we are all connected by the common threads of humanity, that we are each a part of the same human tapestry, when we fully realize that we are all the same, then no human behavior can surprise us.

No human behavior can take us off guard.

No heroic human behavior can impress us, and no horrific human behavior can destroy us.

It can only inspire us. To do the same. Or to go out and do the opposite.

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Work for change.

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