Over the past month Austin Texas has been subject to six bombings, killing and injuring several people. This morning news is reporting that the man responsible has died in an explosion as law enforcement closed in on him.

People in the area are warned to remain vigilant as the last couple of bombs had been sent via delivery companies and it is unknown if there are bombs currently in transit. The investigation is still on going and at this time there is no discernable motive.

Whenever these sort of random murders occur there is usually talk of mental illness but that is a conversation that starts in error and only progresses to greater and greater failures.

It is an understandable error. After all for most people conceiving the motive to lash out and kill strangers is incomprehensible and when we run into an incomprehensible act most people’s first impulse if to label the perpetrators as ‘mad.’

However they are not usually suffering from a mental illness, at least as defined by the current standard of the profession.

Motive is usually there but its incomprehensibility is usually a factor of the acts being several stages removed from the reasons. Like the mass shootings ultimately I think these things are reflections of a societal issues and how some individuals are finding it impossible to cope with our rapidly changing society.

That is not to say we should stop the changes in our society, even if such a thing were in out power. Standing athwart history and shouting stop doesn’t halt history it only gets you run over by it.

We may never understand the why and we do need to come to term with the limits of our understanding.