Joseph Whitson's Blog - Posts Tagged "tragedy"

Last week, I discovered (or rediscovered) the Norwegian pioneer, innovator, explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Fridtjof Nansen, just by clicking on a Google doodle. The doodle redirected me to the Wikipedia article about him. I read the entire page without hesitation—not sure why but I did. Perhaps I'd heard of him before—I can't recall—and if I had, at that time, I wasn't interested enough to commit his name to memory because of one reason or another. There's always one reason or another! So, now, I soak in all that Nansen accomplished in his life. He passed away at the age of 68 and yet his lifetime achievements are monumental and even still may be understated. Not surprisingly, in studying his life, he bolstered, posthumously, my will to accomplish things, even if my achievements, in the end, will be tiny in comparison. I need to stop and notice people like Nansen more often. And not just stop and say, "Oh, how great he was," or "she was," but stop and refresh my knowledge of the person or read about him or her for the first time. I can't speak for you, but I spend too much time looking at images of and reading about those who embody the absolute opposite of people like Nansen, such as mass murderers, "great criminals," or those who have committed abhorrent acts of hate in clear sight. I need to spend more time admiring those who have been great. Especially, I need to admire those of us who are great now. But, first, I must reflect on the poem I started working on two weeks ago about the tragedy on October 1 in Las Vegas. I must be careful not to memorialize the mass murderer. Now I think, How can I bring to life all the acts of kindness and bravery that night? Years from now, will I only remember the details of the massacre by first recalling the name of the mass murderer? Will we, collectively, remember the heroes and the victims too? Going forward, at least, this is what I'll attempt to do, to admire or memorialize, to only remember, the brave, the great, the fallen and the heroes throughout the remainder of my life, and I'll refer to it as the "Nansen Effect!"