Playing Nice
By now you’ve probably heard about the horrific scene aboard a Greyhound bus in Manitoba. A man fatally stabbed and then decaptitated a young male passenger who had been sleeping with headphones on, in what appears to have been a random attack. It’s early in the investigation and so far we’re hearing from traumatized witnesses that the attacker seemed quite normal and chatty at the beginning of the trip but then he moved his stuff in front of the young man who would become his victim. What happened after the horrific killing is almost unbelieveable and too disgusting for me to share here. Let’s just say the murderer has a strong case for pleading insanity.
In no way do I wish to imply that the victim was responsible in any way for what happened to him. We simply don’t know what, if anything, transpired. For all we know the stabber had been hearing voices telling him to kill someone and the victim fit the description. But what it does teach us is, we never really know about who we’re riding with.
My boss put it very well today. He says he told his son not to give anyone the finger or get into a verbal altercation over something petty because you just don’t know when you’re dealing with a lunatic. We’ve all had the experience of striking up a conversation with someone who appeared perfectly normal, until they either launched into a rant out of nowhere or started yelling or something that proved they just weren’t quite right. You simply do not know by looking at someone if they have all of their mental ducks in a row.
My training in the Fanshawe motorcycle course has put me in good stead for ignoring the minor faults of others. When you’re on a bike, everyone else has the right of way, no matter what! Did that transport cut you off? So what! It doesn’t matter what type of vehicle you’re talking about, it will always win against a motorcycle so it’s best to just let it go. That’s the philosophy that will protect you from nutbars, face to face, too.
In the days to come we’ll learn what may have led up to this horrible crime. Maybe there was nothing. It might have been one of those unexplainable situations where a perfectly innocent person lost their life to a mentally ill person. Even if the victim did “diss” the attacker or whatever, there is no justification in the world for what occured. It’s truly insane. And we have to remember that there are people out there who – while we pity them and hope they seek help – should cause us to be extra careful, for our own safety.
