Question for movie buffs: which has been destroyed more in various movies - the city of New York, or the USS Enterprise? They both seem to get pounded frequently.

But in the last four decades, the growing field of suicidology has shown suicide is more responsive to intervention than previously thought.

Nine out of 10 people who survive an attempt don’t go on to die by suicide. It is often an impulsive act. Removing easy access to guns and other lethal means, research shows, can save many from their most precarious moments.

Helping them create safety plans can reduce their risk by half. Even the simple act of asking people if they’re suicidal — with questionnaires in schools and emergency rooms — has dramatically lowered their risk.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/06/21/twin-suicide-prevention-walk

The lesson to be learned from the epic life and tragic death of Howard Baskerville is that the markers of identity we rely on to separate ourselves into different tribes serve only to mask the humanity we all hold in common.

You have the right, I suppose, to be narrow-minded, full of hate and cruel judgement. It’s a sad choice, but I understand that some people are raised that way.

It’s sad.

But even if you chose that life, you do not have the right to bully, attack, coerce, intimidate, legislate, or mandate your personal agenda onto others.

Imagine if:

   We offered a hand to others instead of a fist.

   We raised our voices in song, not hatred.

   We were comfortable enough within our own skin to not mind the color of someone else’s skin.

   We were comfortable enough within our own religion or spirituality to not feel the need for everyone else to believe exactly what we believe.

   We invested our resources in people and our communities for the benefit of people and not monetary profit.

   We were as accepting of peace as we seem to be of war.

I know who I am. I also know I do not have the right or wisdom to decide for another person who they are, or how they manifest in this world.

We are not alone. What happens to this planet, to its lands, its waters, its wildlife, its people…happens to us all.

Do you choose a life-sustaining garden or a war-torn devastated planet?

Choose wisely, please.

Maybe create a miracle or two.

“The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish. This war, that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand. Other men have spoken them, in other times, of other wars, of other weapons. They have not prevailed. There are some, misled by a false sense of history, who hold that they will not prevail today. It is not for us to believe that. By our works we are committed, committed to a world united, before this common peril, in law and in humanity.” J. Robert Oppenheimer, October 16th, 1945