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The Roots of All Evil


              I recently took a trip down an emotional rabbit hole. Between a book I finished, the next one I started, and a new binge-worthy TV series, I came in contact with the three categories of evil that exist in the world. I was overwhelmed by it. Part of me is still. There is too much of it, and it seems the people fighting it are losing the war over the heart of humanity. However, the first step in solving a problem is understanding what it is.

              I finished reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This is a book that is profoundly sad, and a book everyone should read. I had considered myself sympathetic to the plight of Black Americans, but I had no idea how much one racist act, unconscious though it may have been, reverberates throughout the community. This book does an excellent job of illustrating the evil in the world that exists through decades of historic racism and the institutions it created. This evil cannot be combated effectively until the infrastructure that promotes it is torn down and rebuilt.

              I immediately started reading Dopesick by Beth Macy afterwards. This was the next book in my night time reading shelf, so it was accidental that it followed The Hate U Give. Not even three chapters into this journalistic overview of the nation’s opioid crisis, I was broken. Corporations can make millions off of the pain and suffering of others. They can shield their evil because most people see the evil in the world as out of sight, out of mind. Or so it seems. The grief of hundreds of people who have lost loved ones because of greed, for both money and power, is too steep a price to pay for the current state of things. Adam Smith said that corporations will always work for profit, and not for the public good. This truth is centuries old. If corporations are going to ignore what is good for people, why do we let them run the country?

              The final nail in my coffin of infinite sadness came from the TV series Outlander. It just so happened that my mom and I needed a new show to watch together, and the soundtrack intrigued me. I quickly reached the end of the first season (going far ahead of where my mom and I left off), which featured the culmination of machinations by the most Evil. Individual. Ever. I was broken, along with his victim, to my core. The fact that such evil could exist in one person was too much for me. I operate under the assumption that there is good in everyone, and that good need only be nurtured in people to make the world better. This man, fictional though he is, almost took my hope in humanity away.

I have now started climbing back out of the rabbit hole, though I am forever changed by the journey. I cannot see the sources of evil in the world: historic hatred, corporate greed, and truly evil individuals. However, I will not sit quietly and watch the war be lost. I have an idea, and I will see it through. If no one listens, or is brave enough to try, at least I did my part. Dopesick included a Chinese proverb, which I will paraphrase to end this chapter: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

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