Staring into the abyss of another horrific news story, where someone senselessly killed nine others, I’ve nearly ran out of words.

A few years ago, the direction of my writing changed significantly, from sports-related material to pieces that tried to peel back the layers of everyday life and made sense of the world around us.

Most posts are not nearly as funny and entertaining as they once were. I’ve been told that my writing is “too real” and “too heavy” – comments that are understandable. I’d like to believe I’ve grown a bit since I began writing as a career-slash-hobby over 10 years ago. My wife has changed me, my children have changed me. Life changed me.

It was around the time that a Kansas City Chiefs player, Javon Belcher, committed a murder-suicide a few years ago that I suddenly found it less important to debate the greatness of athletes.

The blinders came off and I starting seeing things differently. The outcomes of sporting events and the world within the world of sports that debates stats, stadium funding and “who’s better” seem to matter little now in the grand scheme of life.

Yet I understand the need for others – and myself – to use them as an escape. We need it, we truly do. Sports are a drug for some of us, an emotional high we use to distract us from the problems of our life and the world around us.

When a game is going on, we are thrust into a temporary reality where all that matters is scoring more than the other guys, having stamina, determination, grit and belief. The scoreboard is clear with the outcome. And there is always – always – another chance.

Life doesn’t really work like that. Bills must be paid, jobs must be worked. If you lose a partner, a friend, a family member to death, there is no next season. So sports serve a finite purpose in this world, as do movies, music and television.

Those who know me well know that I am a Disney World fanatic and a Marvel films junkie. These are my distractions. We all have them, and for the most part, that’s perfectly fine.

Except I wonder how far our fantasies will take us? How far have they already gone in creating a society of people who turn further and further away from the problems at hand – in their lives and the larger world in general?

If we are constantly distracting ourselves, then really, in time, life becomes the distraction, the thing we can’t be bothered with because it’s taking our attention away from what we’ve filled our time with.

To everything, there is a season. And sometimes, it’s not social hour. Sometimes, it’s not fun. Sometimes, work has to be done.

We seem to having difficulty with that last one.

The world has always been full of lunacy, of evil intent. But have we ever seemed so indifferent?

As Jon Stewart suggested on “The Daily Show” last night, we’ve gone to war on terrorism. We’ve invaded countries all over the globe to defend freedom and Americans. We’ve lost soldiers in this battle. And yet, what we do and can do to each other in our own country is worse.

Think of all the wars the world has seen. Think of what we are meant to stand for, what the principles of this country are founded upon. And we can’t even be nice to fellow Americans.

We say that these incidents are isolated, that the people conducting these atrocities are “crazy” or that they are racist, or fanatical or whatever. We want to blame guns. We want to blame drugs. We want to blame the culture or the upbringing or whatever.

But we’re all Americans. We’re all human. And we’re doing these things to ourselves.

The media will find a way to turn this into ratings and “debate” several things in the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting. They will debate old issues, unresolved issues, issues that shouldn’t be issues.

But none of it will change.

The coming presidential election, as most are, will be defined by something that has very little to do with the actual direction of the country. Truth is, we don’t “debate” anything anymore. There are fewer and fewer civilized conversations because neither side, neither party, is willing to admit that the other has a good point – or that they could be (GASP!) wrong.

We’re a bunch of miniature dictators that think we know what’s best for the other 300 million people in our country – and really – for billions around the world.

But honestly, we have very few answers. Look around. We’re a mess in our families, our relationships, our jobs and yet we wonder why others in our nation can do the kind of heinous things that are happening from coast to coast?

We are lazy, intolerant and rude. Worst of all, we’re uniformed by the same medium that promotes the very things that scare us back to reality for a few days.

The older I have the good fortune of becoming, I realize that it is true: everything I really need to know I learned at a very young age.

Be nice. Be kind. Share. Don’t hit people. Don’t say mean things. Apologize when you do something wrong. Clean up your own mess. Wash your hands. Put things back where you found them. Respect others. Watch out for traffic. Think and learn and play and draw.

Why is this so hard? Why do we complicate these things? I’m running out of words because no matter how complex the issue or the situation, no amount of nuance can mask the simple fact that these are the answers.

They have always been the answers.

We treat ourselves, our problems, our dramas with such reverence, as if they matter more than being kind. I want to believe that people can change people. I want to believe that we’re willing to look past our differences to co-exist.

But we just keep repeating ourselves in the same horrible, unconscionable fashion every few days, weeks or months – which is making it much, much harder for me to keep repeating myself in my writing.

The only words I’ve got left right now are these:

Be kind.