This morning I was greeted with CNN headlines about the Virginia Tech campus getting shot up by some deranged gunman. 32 people are now dead and 29 more are injured. What the hell did this serve?
As of now there are not many details coming out, just that the gunman is dead after a 2+ hour crime spree. Some reports are commenting that the gunman was looking for his girlfriend, that when he couldn't find her he lined people up in one building and just shot them execution style. It is now nothing short of a massacre.
I think I speak for nearly everyone on the planet when I say I know what it is like to have your heart broken. To feel like you are plummeting down a bottomless abyss and life has become a lonely, aimless journey - to feel sadness and depression, to not be able to see a brighter day, especially in the wake of rejection from someone you loved very deeply.
But how in hell does killing innocent, unknown people sooth a seared soul? Does THAT get the girl? "Ooooh, Johnny just shot up campus and killed 20 people, I am sooooo attracted to him now! What was I thinking breaking up with him last weekend?"
Hmmmmm,... pretty fucking good asshole.
The question is now: "What is wrong with our society where we are starting to experience a half-dozen or so shootings a year?"
How have we become so disconnected from one another that a viable solution to the inner turmoil is to simply take out innocent bystanders? Where was the gunman's support structure, parents, friends, etc.? Did he never mention how hurt he was inside, or some of the violent urges in his head?
I recall clearly when I lost who I thought was my true love, Lisa Wohletz.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and when I first saw her it hit me like a bolt of lightning.
I couldn't take my eyes off of her.
Without question, there were mornings and days and nights where I felt like rolling over and dying. I couldn't understand how she could leave. I still don't. The answers have never arrived. The more I walked away from that day the less it stung. But I still feel it today.
I mean, just look at her! I thought that I had finally arrived at happiness in life. I thought all that struggle and uncertainty I had been through in my life were all leading up to her. New Jersey needed to push me away so I would wander out to Colorado and we could unite our kindred spirits.Just look at these gorgeous lips, supple breasts!
Look at this perfect ass! What immaculate perfection!
Now, how could I possibly go on after her? Without her I felt like I was gutted and my insides were strewn all along the thousands of miles I've walked, away from her.Did I feel like living? Nope.
But did I go and shoot up a shitload of perfect strangers because Lisa wouldn't give me what I wanted more than anything in the world? Nope.
It never even OCCURRED to me to hurt anyone else. So, what is going on with the rest of our society? Men and women break up everyday, hearts break everyday, they have since time immemorial, since cave days, since four-legged days, since amphibian days.
But only recently does it seem that the modern solution is the business end of a weapon. Here in Colorado, I believe I am on the front lines of domestic gun violence in America. Twice a month there is a story in the paper about some Colorado man whose relationship wasn't working out, so here are the few options in front of him:
A) Stick it out and work it out,
B) Divorce, or
C) Kill your wife, kids and yourself.
And unfortunately, the answer turns up C far too much. Is this new behavior? Or have these things always been going on and only now, with the constant innundation of mainstream media, are we learning about these incidents?
Me, I think that this is a new culture in America. Where did it arise from? Did people just wake up one day to a violent and murderous mass consciousness? Who woke up on the 'psycho killer' side of the bed in the morning?
All of this just leads me to believe that America is unraveling as far as a community and a country. We do not respect each other or each other's lives. A culture of violence has risen in this country since the 1990's, but the answers why fly by just as fast as a gunman's bullet. Perpetrators of these crimes nearly always kill themselves and so their motives go to the grave with them, leaving us unsatisfied as to only guess his motivations. The Columbine killers left behind mountains of motive evidence: videos, diaries, school projects and web sites all proclaimed their intentions, sometimes even a year before the Columbine Massacre. But now, these new psychos just commit their crimes and we are left to ponder why.
