A Grey Christmas, and an Uncertain New Year

Shootings, storms, and fiscal cliffs.  Christmas is over and it's back to "life as usual".  But I am sure I am not the only one who noticed that people were not really feeling the Christmas spirit this year.  Things were psychologically heavy this year, more so than I can recall in my lifetime.  I think that no matter how much you shelter yourself from the events in the world today, there's just no escaping the feelings of despair and uncertainty that are in the air these days. 

I, for one was hoping for something dramatic on December 21st.  Not something catastrophic that causes loss of life, but some...thing.  Some change. Something that would cause people to stop living in the little bubbles they have built around themselves and relearn to live together as communities.  A situation where people relearn empathy, and what it's like to help instead of hurt. But as the day drew nearer, I realized that not only was there going to be no big change for the better, but the world appears to be getting worse. 

On December 24th, my area became one of the many national headlines about a crazed shooter taking lives for no real definable reason.  A guy in his 60's by the name of Spengler decided to set a trap for first responders by setting his house on fire.  When they arrived he hid out and shot 4 of them sniper style.  2 of them died.  Because it was not safe for firefighters to enter the scene for quite some time, the fire was left to rage, out of control for an extended period.  In the end 7 homes were destroyed, and Spengler's sister's body was found in the house where the fire originated, which they shared.  A letter that Spengler left behind states that this was a trap and it was all a plan designed to kill as many people as possible.  He was found dead on the beach from a self inflicted gun shot wound.

Our society has been breeding these people who have a goal of hurting as many of their fellow humans as possible in the most profound of ways,  I think that the problem has existed for years, and we are just now seeing the result.  The accumulation of an uncaring society where money rules all.  A society where people are so low on our list of values that those who are so obviously sick are left alone to become lost in their own damaged minds until all they can see is death and destruction.

So the Mayan calendar was wrong (or rather our interpretation of it was), but does that mean that we are going to give up on change?  It is as if we are in some kind of collective depression, and I will be interested to see how this all plays out for 2013.  I think that many of us are ready to let 2012 go, but we fear what is ahead of us and only time will tell which way the pendulum will swing.