One of the things you’re witnessing in the Parkland students with their resilience to NRA/conservative harassment and calumny is that after trauma you tend to just not give a fuck.

I was never in combat, but after being in the army and seeing friends and colleagues injured and killed on drop zones and in the course of duty, how much do you think some incompetent boss really stresses me out? I’ve had a gun pulled on me in my own front yard. My own mother tried to stab me. Having some arrogant pharmacist pester me or some blog troll harass me is a break from the other lives I’ve experienced.

This isn’t quite “nothing left to lose” in me or those kids. After all, they’ve got everything left to lose — their entire futures not lived yet.

After trauma though, you experience a certain sort of calm. At least, many people do. It’s the serenity of knowing that you’ve been through so much worse and this is literally nothing. It’s a very freeing feeling, but goddamn do you have to get there the hard way.

I do not recommend it to anyone, but I feel it in my self and I see it in those kids from Parkland. They arrived at calm via the most difficult path and I can see it in their eyes when they stare out at the crowds.