It may be that someone blew it and is to blame for the recent collapsed bridge in Minnesota.
Then again, maybe nobody is to blame.
Why, before the tragedy is even ended, do we rush to find someone, anyone, to scape goat for every bad event?
Isn’t it possible in a complicated world nobody is to blame?
By all means we should investigate the situation, but bad things happen.
Things break no matter what we do.
When I was a kid the solution to keeping things from breaking was bubble wrap . . . the stuff that was such fun to pop after you were done using it.
When you became an adult, you learned a sad truth about bubble wrap and packages. However much bubble wrap you put around your package it still might get broken in the mail. That is the risk you take when you ship something.
To do anything worth doing, there will always be an element of danger.
Bubble wrap cannot save everything . . . and who would want to live rolled in metaphorical bubble wrap anyway?
Risk leads to return, but sometimes our risk taking does not play out as we hoped. That is the way of the fallen world.
If we are not careful, we will try to bubble wrap the nation to try to make it so nobody can get hurt, but there is not enough bubble wrap in the whole cosmos to achieve this goal.
Not only would it fail to prevent all disasters, bubble wrap mishaps of some sort would begin to pop up, but the time and energy spent on the project would delay other important human achievements.
We seem in danger of forgetting that risk is the price we pay for reward. Want to get cross town faster? Build a bridge, but then run the finite risk it will fall. . . even if everyone does everything right.
It is sad when bad things happen and we mourn with the families, but we must allow our response to be proportional.
If we spend all our resources making sure bridges can never collapse, then we will not have the resources to prevent other, perhaps more deadly, problems.
Recently a local paper described a man’s death as tragic, since he had so much still to give to the community. It turns out the man was well over seventy and died of an illness common to men of that age. Tragic? It is certainly sad, as all death is sad for those left behind to mourn, but it is not tragic.
In the bubble wrap nation it is easy to imagine the family beginning to look for someone to sue over the “tragic and untimely” loss of their seventy-something grandfather. After all, grandfather did nothing wrong, he went to the hospital, why isn’t he well? What bubble wrap should they have used to protect him?
The sad reality is that to live to seventy-five is to risk certain diseases.
Nothing new about that . . . because each choice you are making now carries risk with the reward.
Eating dinner carries risk.
Driving cars carries risk.
Living in Southern California carries with it the risk of earthquakes.
The North East has dreadful winters that make driving a risk.
Being a wealthy and powerful nation carries risk.
Going to the moon was risky.
We should grieve with those who grieve, but also avoid the unseemly rush to find someone, anyone, to blame for what may, after all, have been part of the unavoidable downside of choices we have made and risks we have taken.