October 25th — An active mass shooter is in my dad’s town, and I am sitting on the subway in New York. The only image available online shows a man carrying an assault-style rifle and walking into one of the bowling alleys where I used to go as a kid.
As soon as Facebook and the local news channels sent out the first blast, my dad called to tell me that he is safe. Most of us, certainly myself included, have a vague conception of gun violence and other acts of hate in our country, yet by and large, we sit on our hands because we do not know what else to do. The killer walks as I sit. I imagine most of the other passengers have no idea about it, and I cannot blame them. There have been over 500 mass shootings in the United States this year, but I cannot name a single one: I worry about becoming desensitized to tragedy because of constant exposure to violence and infinite content online. Although the picture of this man on my phone disturbs me so deeply, I am quite aware that the shooting in Lewiston is minor news while the crisis in the Gaza Strip continues to escalate. The ability to be aware of these far-away atrocities in real-time is unique to the digital age, and these new technologies created a new emotional environment for us all. The screen in my hands can show me images from the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Lewiston shooting, but I have no idea how to feel in the face of overlapping and far-away horrors. I feel heavy. Obviously, I do not have a fix for any of this shit, so for my purposes here, I am asking myself a much simpler question: How can I even be sad for the next tragedy?
In my eyes, the answer has to address one’s emotional sensitivity not only for lives lost, but also for the people still here. My dad is a role model for dealing with notable difficulty and grief in life, and his story reveals profound strength despite loss. Somehow, he is still one of the kindest guys you’ll ever meet. He stands a mighty six-five and spends his days writing code next to his little French bulldog. God, he loves that dog. Back when he was my age, difficulty in his home life motivated him to find an outlet for his anger in boxing. I laugh whenever he tells me boxing stories because I cannot picture my father – a gentle giant, as they say – knocking someone out with either hand. He had the option to go into the semipro boxing world, but instead, he decided the next step of his life would be leaving his aggression behind him. The typical young boy’s perception of his father as a giant matched my dad’s physical size and strength, and on the playground after school, I liked to tell my friends about my dad’s toughness underneath his silly exterior. As I grew up, I heard dozens of stories about his big brother Erik, and we had countless car rides when my dad laughed as he told them to me. My dad saw Erik as both a role model and a lifelong friend, but sadly, Erik passed away before I was born. A few years afterwards, my father lost both of his parents while being a single dad.
Familial grief informed my view of the world, and the stories of my uncle and the losses of my grandparents brought the concept of mortality into my life right away. I have no idea how he got through those years, but my dad always tells me feeling my emotions and mourning is an important step to being okay.
I think he’s right. Grief, fear, anger, all those noxious emotions weigh heavily on my mind as I look at this picture of the shooter, and memories of my home tug at my heart. After school and during the summers, I played outside at the Saco Parks and Recreation Department waiting for my mom or dad to pick me up after work. At the edge of the field, signs with government property and electrocution warnings always sparked my interest, but never my fear. In retrospect, I learned that future mass-murderer Robert Card worked in that Army Reserve facility while I played on the other side of the fence. As a little white boy, terrorism seemed like a distinctly Islamic issue in those days, and I could not imagine an American man slaughtering his own neighbors. But it is happening every day. The latest tragedy and the latest entertainment compete for our attention online, and staying sensitive among all the noise is hard work. A few days after the Lewiston shooting, I felt the weight of this effort. I burst into tears on the sidewalk because my dad could easily have been murdered having dinner. Even in New York, where every passerby is a stranger, I embarrassed myself with this public display of emotion. Sadness is often associated with weakness, so I think being genuinely and visually hurt can be uncomfortable for many people, including myself. I thought of my dad and his advice while I watched my tears roll down my girlfriend’s leather jacket. He would tell me that although accepting my sadness is important, we all have to find a way forward.
Somehow my dad managed to move forward after Erik David Steindl passed away. He mourned but stayed committed to loving his family and friends instead of becoming jaded or emotionally distant. When he decided to start a family, my parents gave me the name David Erik Steindl; I myself am a memorial. They wanted to remember my uncle while creating a new family and a new person to love in spite of loss. Loving mortal people is a simple and agreeable notion, and although love makes us vulnerable to loss, it can also make us resilient. Less than a week after the Lewiston shooting, Leroy Walker Sr., whose son Joey died trying to stop Robert Card, demonstrated love and compassion despite his unimaginable pain. In a segment on CNN, Leroy Walker Sr.—a big man— talked about his late son Joey, letting himself be filmed sobbing on national television. Walker’s acceptance of his grief and insistence on compassion for everyone impacted in the shooting, including the man who murdered his son, is a lesson for us all. Walker explains, “If you hate and the hate drives you crazy, you’re just going to hurt people . . . Hate will never bring my son back.”(1) Walker goes on to suggest we should pray for the deceased and pray that atrocities like this will never happen again.
We prayed and are not being heard. Everyone knows mass shootings have continued unabated for years despite all the thoughts and prayers of our communities. Expressing our sadness as faith to supernatural forces has not slowed it down, but at least people like Leroy Walker are trying to help us feel compassion and grief in the face of tragedy. I want to live with this attitude too, even in less severe circumstances. My own father’s personal history demonstrates the value of having compassion not only while mourning, but also in his life afterwards. Compassion got him through losing loved ones and made him a great dad; I got his height, and now I can only hope that I get his strength. These men demonstrate the most human parts of themselves in the face of crisis, and I think this is the best way to respond to any issue, whether it be personal or public, small or large.
To be sad while digital technology constantly redirects our attention and emotional energy, I need to remember that the valuable things in life – my friends, my dad, even a sunny day – are all finite. Mourning and sadness are important, but they are insufficient without actively appreciating and postponing the disappearance of these things. I suppose we can only do so much, but I think we have become comfortable believing that memorials, “spreading awareness”, and other memory projects are a sufficient response to mass shootings and other acts of violence. Although that memory work is indispensable, gun violence in the United States is a devastatingly cruel example of its inefficiency; it must be accompanied with compassion for those who are still alive and there must be quantifiable action to prevent further violence. This is a simple truism, but as a culture, I fear that we are in a crisis of our collective ability to act and think. Digital access to endless atrocities and infinite distractions paralyze me, and I fear for my own capabilities to think, to care, and to actualize any intention for change. Today’s collective unconscious behaves no differently than me, sitting on the subway, flicking through news one moment, distracted the next.
Note
1. CNN, “Victim’s father explains why he doesn’t hate the shooter”
Works Cited
CNN, “Victim’s father explains why he doesn’t hate the shooter”, Youtube, October 27th, 2023, 5:16 to 6:09, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1mOOA4yp5Y
David Steindl is an artist and writer from Maine whose work both criticizes aspects of American society and seeks out ways to be happy in spite of it. He is currently a 4th year student in BFA Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York.