Yesterday was supposed to be a pretty busy work day for me. I had a bunch of random errands I had to do, equipment to clean, calls to make, etc. Inside the house was too chaotic and distracting for me to make my phone calls, so I went outside and sat in the jeep. As I finished my last call, I saw the barrage of notifications from various news aps about what happened in Texas. Fourteen children had been shot- a number that would only grow in the coming hours. My vision became blurry from uncontrollable tears as I read through what little details we had about this absolutely horrific event.

Instinctively, I went over to twitter. A thought crossed my mind- "Homeschool your kids." I dismissed the thought as quickly as I do any other ridiculous impulse that pops into my head. Not everything has to be tied to this or that issue. Maybe, just maybe, any talk about these deaths could be about just that- them, and those they left behind, not some contrived excuse to talk about something else. I knew I would not be the only one to have such an impulse. Instead, I retweeted the CNN story about the shooting, with the following message:

"Humanity is capable such incredible evil. What barbaric piece of shit does this?

Also, I wonder how long into the grieving process before the vampires come out of the woodwork to make this about whatever cause they're part of?

Fourteen dead children. Fourteen. What the fuck."

I then checked the trending tweets page, and immediately found the vampires who decided to act on their impulse. Occupy Democrats made some reprehensible comment about how little conservatives care about these kids' 'heartbeats.' A right-wing commentator saw the shooting as an opportunity to talk about illegal immigration (despite the fact we had no information whatsoever about the immigration status of the shooter). Etc. Vampires live on all ends of the political spectrum. I retweeted a few of these ghouls with my commentary on how soulless they are, and went inside.

I found my wife sitting on the couch with our son, and our daughter on the floor in front of her playing with a toy farmhouse. Walked over to them, leaning down and kissing my wife before picking up our son and holding him close, kissing him on the head. I knelt on the ground and asked our daughter if I could have a hug. "Not right now" she replied. "I'm just playing with my farm animals."

I laughed. "Oh, ok," I responded. "I wouldn't want to interrupt that."
She looked over at me for the first time since I'd come inside and asked "Will you please play with me, daddy?"
I felt the moisture return to my eyes. "Absolutely, sweet heart."

I spent most of yesterday in a daze, as I'm sure many of you did as well. I didn't exactly know what to do. Pretty much all motivation I had to do my errands was gone after news of the shooting. While I didn't know what to do, I knew exactly where to be- at home with my family. I spent the rest of the day with my wife and kids, making our children smile as much as the opportunity presented itself. Most of us spend every day taking the ones close to us for granted. This isn't intentional, but rather a function of fleeting human attention. They take us for granted, too. It's just part of being human.

Yesterday I spent all day intentionally fighting the part of me that grows bored, distracted, and complacent. I resolved not to take them for granted, so that's what I did. I hope you were able to do the same.

We don't live in a collective (thank God). At the same time, it's hard to ignore the fact that our culture, both in person and online, is shaped by us all. Our values, flaws, fears, and dreams. It's almost like a wordle of values, with the biggest words in the middle being the most accurate for describing the atmosphere. There are a lot of good arguments for what the word at the center of that wordle might be on any given day, but one of the most common words has to be "fear."

Fear can be a good thing, when it motivates us to vigilance and productive action. It can also be taken too far, and drive us to extreme tunnel-vision, causing us to make mistakes and lose sight of what we're trying to protect in the first place. Maybe you can relate to this, maybe you can't. I definitely can.

I've been writing and talking a lot about strategy lately. One key aspect of that content is the idea of striving with all our might to simply be better than our ideological opponents. Better at working, better at building, and just better human beings. Quality is attractive; garbage is not. One way to be better is to not play the game as it has been played. Believe me when I say that for every tweet I saw from the Left that was derpderpguns, there was a reply or retweet from the Right playing back at them in an equally pointless fashion. This is playing the game as it has been played. This is a mistake. Responding to bad actors making these deaths about their policy preferences with why their policy preferences are wrong or counterproductive still makes these deaths about policy preferences.

Do not occupy the stereotype your enemies have of you. Do not play their games. Play with your children instead. Love your family. Let your opponents fight windmills.

It's weird how many things hit you differently once you have kids. I don't even remember having a reaction to Sandy Hook. It felt like just another shooting. But this one has had me in tears several times yesterday and today. I absolutely lost it looking at pictures of the victims. Most of them seemed to be about 10 years old. Staggering.

If we say anything about what happened, say something about them and their families. Feel free to point out the vampires making it about their policy preferences, but do not answer them in a way that keeps it about policy, rather than these victims and their families.

I'm rambling now, so I'll stop here. Enjoy your loved ones, and fight to not take them for granted. Be better than our opponents by being more human than our opponents. And whenever possible, play with your kids.