THE SONIC BOOMER
Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” The logical follow-up question is, “But who would want to read that?” Sadly, the answer is everyone.
This is proven out at the bookstore where racks of humor books take up a tiny bit of floor space compared to anything where blood may be involved; and with the major media, the mantra is, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
But think of the animal kingdom. If you’re a gazelle, joyously bounding through the savanna with your buddies, and one of those buddies stumbles into an aardvark hole and breaks its leg, do all the gazelles stop to gawk? They do not. They continue their joyous bounding with nary a look back. A fleeting two-word thought may occur to them as they swerve around the injured party (“lion fodder”) but that’s it.
Call it a lack of empathy or call it self-preservation, the gazelle doesn’t give a flying fig what you call it. It’s got a life to live.
Not so with human beings. A person falls into an aardvark hole and people immediately crowd around. Pretty soon, some writer thinks, “That’s tragic. I have to write about it.” If the bone is sticking out of the leg, great. If the leg is spurting blood, it’s a chapter title somewhere. Even I would scare up a couple of quarters to get a newspaper out of a rack if the bold print screamed, “UNWARY JOGGER IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER BEING TRIPPED UP BY AARDVARK.” Better yet if there’s a photo… showing the spurting blood. Is the aardvark in the frame? Nah. He’s long gone.
It makes me wonder about the field of medicine. Even if most doctors and nurses chose the field due to their overwhelming empathy and concern, you’ve just got to know a few of them are there only for the drama. I mean, there has to be some trade-out for all that bedpan-emptying. (“Aardvark victim on their way. Get the ER ready STAT.” “I’ll do it.” “No way, Stan. You got the last three stabbings and a shooting. It’s my turn.”)
Speaking of stabbings and shootings, this is something you don’t see a lot of in nature, either. There may be the occasional swat-down over a female or a tussle over territorial encroachment, but I think the phrase “I killed him just to watch him die” is profoundly human. Makes me so proud.
Perhaps the drama of life, as reflected in the written word, helps us readers feel less alone, more normal and maybe even happy. (“Wow. I’m glad I’m not the one who found that hole. They really need to fill that in.”) Because no matter how badly your day, week or year is going, there’s always someone worse off than you.
There is always someone whose car insurance just got canceled, whose purse was stolen or whose bratwursts got burned.
I, for one, take solace in that.
