A Fastball Thought

It hit me like a 99-mile-an-hour fastball from Rollie Fingers, right square between the eyes, while tucked in warm and cozy under the covers. We are all gnawing at our fingernails, worried sick about who blocked us, who canceled us, who whispered our names in some digital dark alley where reputations go to die.

All because we dared say we abhor violence against one man. But here’s the kicker—that very man was permanently canceled by an assassin’s bullet.

And yet, here we sit, fretting like middle-schoolers who just found out someone unfollowed them on Instagram. Do we really think the unfriending, the muting, the digital thumbs turned downward, are blows against our existence? Meanwhile, history rolls on, collecting bodies and names, whether we “liked” them or not.

As Alfred E. Neuman used to grin from the cover of Mad Magazine: “What, me worry?”

There’s a kind of wisdom in that buck-toothed fool, a wisdom we’ve misplaced. Somewhere between writing our posts and checking three times a day who’s still reading them, we’ve forgotten the plain truth–nobody gets out of this world alive, and the exit door doesn’t ask if you went viral on your way through.

That man who caught the assassin’s bullet? He had opinions, sure.

Some loved him. Some loathed him.

But the bullet didn’t care. The man was canceled without appeal, without arbitration, without even the chance for a rebuttal post.

One moment: here. Next moment: gone.

Now, I’m not saying words don’t matter—they do. I’m not saying voices don’t matter—they do.

What I’m saying is maybe we’ve confused noise with meaning. Just because you can hear yourself echo in a digital canyon doesn’t mean you’re shaking the mountains. Most times, it means you’re yelling at your own reflection.

Here’s where the humor sneaks in—because you have to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Picture it–you, me, all of us, anxiously refreshing our screens like gamblers pulling levers on slot machines, waiting for the jackpot of validation.

Meanwhile, outside, the dog is wagging its tail, the coffee pot is sputtering, and the sun is climbing over the horizon as it has every day since long before Zuckerberg grew his first pubic hair.

Life is still happening, and we’re missing it while counting who didn’t clap for our performance. I wonder—what would Alfred Neuman say to a culture that panics if a stranger doesn’t hit the “like” button?

Probably something like, “Grow up, kid. Get a sandwich. Pet a dog. Don’t sweat the block button.”

I’m not a cynic. I’m not shrugging at violence or injustice. I’m saying we need to put both things in their proper place.

A bullet that ends a life is tragic beyond words. A block button that silences a voice is annoying, maybe even unfair, but it’s not the end of the world.

The real tragedy is when we confuse the two. Because once we do, we give away our joy, our humor, our tenderness to the tyrants of technology.

And they don’t need bullets—they only need us to care too much about being canceled. So tonight, after jotting this down, I think I’ll crawl back under those covers and let Alfred Neuman whisper in my ear one more time, “Who, me? Worry?”

And maybe tomorrow I’ll do something wild, like live my life without checking whether anyone approves of it. Because the best answer to a world obsessed with cancellation is to be cancelable.

And if someone doesn’t like that? Well, they can go ahead and hit the block button.

I’ll still be here, sipping coffee, petting the dog, and waiting for Rollie Fingers to throw me another fastball of thought.