It’s time to listen to Patton Oswalt.

patton oswalt

Patton Oswalt in United States of Tara. Photo: Showtime.

Many of us are scared or uncertain about what happened in Boston today at the marathon. It’s difficult to know how to feel, what to say, or what to do. And one of the easy things is to just keep getting more anxious. (I don’t know about you, but watching replays of the bombs and seeing more and more pictures of crying people on the news leaves me feeling paralyzed and angry.)

Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt has written something that may help your idle hands.  This is from his Facebook:

Boston. F$*king horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”

But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

Oswalt, perhaps surprisingly to some, is an atheist.

For those not sure about Oswalt but finding themselves suddenly fans, you can see him in all three seasons of The United States of Tara, now on DVD. He is also in the upcoming 2013 movie Odd Thomas which is based on a Dean Koonz novel.

You can find Patton Oswalt on Twitter @pattonoswalt.

Tagged: