I am a radical in life. Why? Despite all evidence to the contrary, I still believe in people.

The news will definitely get you down and much of your personal experience may get you down too. It's common to hear people screaming at one another in this world and the constant barrage of drug and gun deaths certainly makes one feel as if humanity is resigned to a horrible fate.

Guess what, though? I still believe in people.

I have experienced alot in my life and travelled and met a wide variety of different people. In each of my journeys, I have experienced good in the face of chaos, jealousy and hatred. I've seen people renounce hatred. Let me tell you a few stories.

Washington D.C.

About the end of my university years, I applied to the mother of all internships - the Heritage Foundation. I was a libertarian in those days, not a conservative, but I thought I might as well try. I never thought I'd get hired.

I really enjoyed myself and my roommates most of the time I was there. It began to quickly deflate, however - my enthusiasm, that is. What caused it? A mix of things.

D.C. is a nasty city, as I'm sure most Dagbloggers know, and the racism was something old and smelly and hard to ignore. It was very disappointing and one of the guys I worked with was a caracature of a racist conservative. Most of his comments each day were geared at some encounter he had with a black person in D.C. and they sounded straight out of a Klan rally.

I voiced my dislike of it to my roommates and one even said it was "obvious" I hated it there. I did hate it and I still don't really list it on my resume even though I'm sure it could open doors and get me in a much better situation than I have now. Nevertheless, the good came glaring out.

When I got back to Seattle, one of my roommates, Mark, who is a Christian like me, called me and told me that I had "really opened his eyes." Mark is from a small town - the impact of racist comments didn't really jar him the way it did for me. His great empathy on this has come to mind several times and, even if I don't talk about the Heritage experience that much because I didn't like many of the people I met, I also don't talk about it because I am aware that I have likely said a number of things I didn't realize were mean spirited or even prejudiced in a different direction entirely. Mark isn't just a friend but one of the best people I've ever met and even if I'm no longer a conservative, he had a great significance in directing me on a Christian path.

Guam

Guam was crazy. I have talked about it on Dagblog before but never in its full, brutal glory - here goes.

When I traveled to see my uncle and his family in Guam, I had no idea what living situations would be like. I figured we'd be living in a normal house somewhere, nothing special but much like the beach houses that I had always seen Hawaii depicted as having. Guam is much like Hawaii, after all.

We were living outside! My uncle Ted is a strange hillbilly sort and he lived pretty much outside, procrastinating and standing in the way of efforts of his son in law, Ervin (name changed for his safety), to build a house. Ervin and I became friends and Ervin began to try to shake me for my mom's money. When he did get cash, he genuinely did use it for a house but serious drama occurred when you insert money in to a family in a developing country.

A really bad flood hit and destroyed a bunch of things I owned - including the supply of the SSRI I was on. The pills were destroyed - I couldn't take them and when I tried to, I vomited. I went in to withdrawal and the withdrawal was ugly. I was yelling at people, on edge and scary. At one point Ervin started yelling at me in this horrible state about money - on the brink from withdrawal, I threatened him with a weapon (not a gun but I won't expand on what it was).

No one was hurt. Ervin took me down and put me back in to a normal mindset in this state. Who knows - it may not have been his first rodeo. I could have gone to jail for that - in a developing country. Imagine the horror of that.

I didn't. Ervin protected me, kept me with him the whole time I was there and drove me to the airport when I got back. He messaged me when I got home to make sure I was safe and, after my fiance Jennifer passed, he messaged me to ask if I was doing okay and where I was writing and how I was getting around town.

He could have thrown me to the dogs. Ervin had his own rap sheet - he had sold drugs a long time. He didn't. Good is everywhere.

Jennifer's Passing

I lost a fiance and a lover. I will admit that I thought it was going to happen every time she fell asleep - her weight was in cancer patient territory, she barely ate and took a level of pharmaceuticals I would be terrified to ingest. Many people I know have referred to what happened as "shocking" and I can understand why they think that from the outside - however, Jennifer was clearly, visibly ill. She sent me a picture right before she came to Seattle in which she looked very clearly terminally ill. She really, really wanted to visit me and had the means to do so so I didn't refuse and followed her wishes in regard to what she thought would help her. I knew about people with her fragility since I was very young - one of my mom's friends lost a wife to cancer. Nevertheless I love her and ignored the warning signs and cast them to the back of my mind.

I live in a public housing complex and have since 2012. It's not full of humanity's shining stars though some people are very nice. Nevertheless the response, for the most part, that I got to Jennifer's passing was heartwarming. As I said in my article for Expats Post:

Meanwhile, I look for inspiration after such an event in the subtle things. My apartment building isn’t filled with the cream of society’s crop. I was a bit paranoid when I had to come back for another month that I would experience something ugly. I didn’t really – most people were very respectful. People who actually knew both of us were extremely respectful and some people even went out of their way to be respectful. There was some gossip but it seemed to die down very fast. I saw this coming – Jennifer L. Reimer was obviously sickly and would tell you about it if you got to know her well enough. Her body wasn’t able to defend itself. One tenant who has known me since 2011 warned me that the grief counseling session I set up would be overcome with gossipers but none were present. It was just myself, friends, family and several counselors.

Even despite some preparation, actually seeing and experiencing it was very harsh. I really want to thank the people who were caring enough to grab my shoulders and tell me I will be okay right as it happened – a more timid person would avoid getting hit by that train. When I was in the office with the apartment manager, some people would actually apologize for barging in once they saw me there. That is what respect looks like and that is what I got for the most part. It was certainly more respect than doctors gave her (or me).

I think that this lessons are relevant in the wake of yet another gun tragedy - this time at the familiar locale of University of California at Santa Barbara. Humanity is not all turds and the overwhelming majority of people do not engage in this insanity. The majority want to help others. We really need to work on protecting ourselves better against the minority that doesn't but we shouldn't fool ourselves in to thinking we all are monsters.