Security is illusory. At any moment we can be struck down with accident, illness, crime, disaster, or misfortune. From that perspective, most of us are actually doing not too badly. We're still alive and kicking. Life just has remained the gauntlet that it ever was. It's OK to be human, but we can overcome the grief we feel on behalf of the victims with compassion for them.

In the great Indian epic called the Mahabharata, the god Dharma decided to test his son and find out whether he has the quality of a king. Dharma asked his son many questions, and the final one was the hardest. What is the greatest miracle of all? Without pause, the son answered, "Every day, we face disease, disaster, and death. Yet we walk on as if though we are immortal. That is the greatest miracle of all."

So let's participate in the miracle of life. Now, I'm aware that we're drawn to emergency preparation because we are more sensitive to risks, and we want to optimize our chances of survival by managing the risks. So we walk on knowing that S might just HTF one day. But in the mean time, let's remember our enormous ability to put things in perspective, and accept that insecurity is the condition of human existence.