Two things happened on Sunday to make me very sad and which affected me greatly. The first was the mass murder in Akihabara by a 27 yo psycho who drove a rented 2 tonne truck into a very crowded street and then stabbed and killed 7 people, injuring 12 others. He, like so many others, deserves our compassion for an obviously troubled mind, produced by an overly industrialised society that has many internal economic inequalities and an very unforgiving attitude towards perceived (if not real) failures. However, my great sadness comes from the shear magnitude of evil perpetrated by him against truly innocent people who ranged in age from 19 to 74, most being young. Akihabara on a Sunday is a fun place to go and I go there very frequently to ride my bike around and look at the strange clothes often worn by manga fans and just to buy video games or other electronic things I need, plus to eat really excellent food cheaply. I am touched by this horrendous event not because “it could have been me” but simply because by being familiar with the location and the types of people affected the event has a greater reality for me than most other news reports.
The second was the sudden and lonely death of a work colleague, a secretary at my law firm, who was found in her apartment Monday morning. No explanation has been given yet for her death but it could have been accidental overdose of prescription medicine. She was a very nice person and I cannot believe that she is gone. My sad feelings for her loss are greater because it makes me imagine that she may have been a very unhappy person and not truly connected with anyone. Such irrevocable loss is harder to bear due to my hope that it is avoidable but also my realisation that usually it is not.
