Recently, one of it's lead actors passed away. This is not about him. This is about the comments made about his death. This is about how people seem to lack all human kindness when they have the veil of secrecy that the internet allows.
I will be honest. I have seen addiction in many shapes and forms. I've experienced it myself. I have had the chance to talk to people trying to get sober, to see people struggling with drug addiction. It is not simple, it is not easy. It is frustrating, heart breaking. It will make you angry, make you lash out. It is a painful process that, in most cases, will need to be repeated multiple times, wearing you down more and more the longer it continues. It is destructive and devastating.
It is not simple. If the comments have shown me anything, they have shown me that people truly do not understand addiction. They don't understand the driving need, the fear, the anguish. They don't understand how the addict suffers, how their family and friends suffer.
You cannot tell an addict to stop, and just expect them to stop. There is more to it then just getting high. The addiction is the surface of something much darker, much more damaged. The drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the gambling... they are all a symptom. They are a piece of a greater problem.
When we live in a world where people just dismiss someone's death because they possibly died of a drug overdose, we live in a world that refuses to understand other's pain and suffering. I know it isn't easy. When we look at someone who dies of something like a drug overdose, we only see the self-inflicted destructive behavior. We simplify it. We replace the human with a pre-defined role. We ignore the life, and focus only on the method of death. In the case of the young actor, we assume, because of his history, that he died of a drug overdose, and pass judgment before the autopsy report has even been signed. He had struggled with addiction in the past, so it had to be a drug overdose, right?
Does it matter? Does it really matter that he had struggled with drugs? Does that reflect on how he treated his friends and family? Does that reflect on how he stepped up and spoke out for causes that he believed in? Does it matter? Does it? When you answer that question, think about that answer. What does that answer say about you? Do you ignore the good, and focus only on the negative?
Thinking about this makes me want to shake someone. It makes me want to reach out, grip someone by the shoulders and shake them. When did it become so acceptable to care so little, to feel so little? When did it become fun to be cruel? I look at this world, and listen and read what it has to say, and I lose faith. I lose hope. I'm ashamed because I have done exactly what angers me. I have disappointed myself because I have allowed the cruelness that has invaded the human race to infect me as well, but I refuse to let it take hold.
A part of my journey as I've gotten older is to try and understand. Empathy is not easy. You have to look past all the pre-conceived ideas of what a person's label means. A "thug", a "drug addict", a "porn star", a "beggar". Whatever they are, the important piece of who they are is that they are human. They are a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a mother or father. To someone they could be a lover, a friend, a co-worker. They have gone on their own journey through life, and they have had their own experiences that have shaped them as a person. We don't attempt to understand, we just say a quick, snarky comment and move on.
When the world becomes so dismissive to the pain of others, it loses its ability to empathize. It loses the one thing that can make us better. What are we without empathy?
We are sociopaths.
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