Where Do We Go From Here?

"All of my high school Indian classmates are now dead . . . . . all of them. Drugs, not necessarily just pot -- but that is where most of them started, and/or, alcohol -- were involved in every fatal incident, with my last schoolmate Mike, lying on a cold sidewalk wondering if all this free and easy was worth it while offering apologies to anyone who still cared, for his disreputable behavior as a few cc's of blood spurted out of the knife wound in his chest with each beat of his dying heart or maybe it was Billy's last words to his wife, "hey Cindy, watch this," as he pressed the barrel of a loaded .22 revolver against the roof of his mouth. These are just a couple of incidents that really captured my attention, shocking me to the core, back in the day. Today, the attrition from drugs knows no boundaries, afflicting families across the spectrum. Yesterday, I spent a few minutes talking with an old friend who had eschewed any thoughts about changing his libertarian stance on morality well over twenty years ago, thinking everyone has a right to go their own way, do their own thing; we had those kind of conversations a long time ago while drinking beer at the local pub. I'd go home early, and eventually, so would he: 6 months ago his son put a 158 grain slug into his brain, right in front of his terrified younger sister pleading for him to stop." Fuchs