There’s that poor man, in a picture frame. There’re those kids, standing in front of that picture frame, being callous, glib, and jeering on social media about it. They’re in a picture frame, too and you’re regarding it, judgy like them and publicly coy about it, like them. Outside of that in another picture frame, me, doing just the same, so I’m part of this cycle as much as you are. Outside that, like a reflection of a reflection, a regress of people winding out so far we lose sight of the central tragedy, the drowning victim, and are instead left with a miasma of the inability to put oneself in another’s position.

I don’t believe judgment comes from a wee man on a big throne in the clouds. I don’t believe real judgment comes from the courts any more than it does from public opinion or the authors of history or even feckless idiot bystanders to tragedy like these kids. That moment, for that man? That’s about his judgment. Not ours. As we look on in our respective reference frames, we can lose sight of it.