One of the things that has defined me for my entire life is an unending, almost foolhardy sense of optimism. It was an optimism instilled in my in no small part by the entertainment I consumed as a kid. Be it the Disney films where good always triumphs over evil, Star Wars where one of the most evil men in the galaxy is able to be redeemed, or stories of heroes like Superman and Spider-Man who set aside their own desires to instead dedicate their lives to helping the less fortunate. It was stories like these and more that taught me to always look for the good in others, to empathize with people who are different, to believe that, no matter how dark things seemed, that good would triumph over evil.
Last night, evil won.
I’ll be honest with you, this has been a crisis of faith for me in a way that nothing else ever has. Like many people, I’ve struggled with depression. I’ve been in some very bad places, I’ve felt like my life was over and that there was no point in carrying on. But even in those dark places I still believed that the world would endure, that good would win out eventually, and that, sone day, a brighter future was possible, even if I wasn’t there to see it. For the first time ever I feel like the world has ended. Not just my life, not just my future, but that the entire foundation of everything I’ve believed to be true has rotted and decayed, consuming everything in its collapse.