David McElroy

Since George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin last year, two dominant narratives have emerged about the case.

Many of Zimmerman’s supporters think he’s a hero. They see him as someone standing up to punks and criminals who terrorize peaceful neighborhoods. They see Martin as a young thug who was no good, even if he didn’t have any evil intent on the night of the shooting. They think it’s perfectly reasonable that Zimmerman followed Martin and reported his mere presence in the neighborhood as suspicious. These people assume that the thuggish Martin attacked Zimmerman and then Zimmerman killed Martin in self-defense.

Zimmerman’s opponents have an entirely different picture. They see Zimmerman as a racist white thug who went after a peaceful black kid who was minding his own business. (We’ll ignore the fact that he’s half Hispanic.) They see it as a clear-cut case of murder, because they say Zimmerman had no reason or right to report Martin to police, much less confront him in some way. Even if Martin threw the first blow, they think Zimmerman is a murderer because he’s the one who initiated the confrontation simply because he was suspicious of a black teen.

If you believe the first narrative, Zimmerman is a role model for standing up for civilized society. If you believe the second narrative, Zimmerman is a racist killer who deserves to be found guilty of murder.

I see both of those narratives as simplistic. As the trial wraps up — and the case could go to the jury today — I want to give a third narrative. It’s not one that’s neat and clean. It won’t win approval from either side of the racially driven stories. I think it’s reasonable, though.

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There’s nothing like thinking about death to focus your mind on how you really feel about life. I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently — for various reasons — and it’s left me loving life even more.

A couple of people have recently talked to me about wanting to die. That hits me hard, because I see both of them as having the capacity to have long and fulfilling lives ahead of them and because it’s so different from how I feel about life.

At the risk of sounding obvious, the specifics of life can be terribly difficult. I’m certainly not where I want to be. I don’t have the love or money or position or achievements that I’d like to have. I frequently don’t know how to get from where I am now to where I’d like to be — how to bring the vivid picture in my mind into being. But I’ve never lost hope. When Death comes for me, he’ll have to carry me kicking and screaming if he wants to take me.

Another reason I’ve had death on my mind this week is because of the death of a baby in a family on my street a week ago. The little boy was born six or eight weeks ago with serious problems. They were problems that could be fixed with surgery, but he had to get stronger to survive the surgery. He never got strong enough, so he died. His parents never got to hold him until the last moments when the life was slipping away from his tiny body.

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Do you ever have days when you feel like ditching the “civilized world” and moving to a remote cabin without leaving a forwarding address? I’ve been feeling that urge lately — and it’s getting stronger.

The more I know and understand people, the more I dislike most of them. I wish I could like more of them. I really do. There are a few who I care about deeply, to differing degrees, but the vast majority of people seem determined to present themselves in a way intended to make me hate the entire human race.

I’ve become sick of the vicious and nasty hatred that I read and hear from people simply because others have the temerity to disagree with them. I see it more online today than in real life, but I suspect it’s just because people feel anonymous enough online (even on Facebook) to vent their real feelings instead of hiding them as they do when they’re face to face with people.

I’ve become heartsick about the almost complete inability of a large percentage of people to even attempt to understand each other. So many people lash out in anger if they even suspect that someone disagrees with them on political or cultural issues.

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