Stop The World, I Want To Get Off
It's no secret that sometimes it's hard to find inspiration for AOGB, especially as of late. There's no real predicting what I'm going to write about or when I'm going to write it. I've always prided myself take my blogging cues from random occurrences, whether it be old men or Old Navy.
But sometimes things happen that are so major it seems wrong not to acknowledge them. Then, when you finally sit down to put your thoughts into words, the words just don't see to come out the way you want them to. Anything that does come out instead feels hollow and redundant, especially considering the fact that everyone is usually talking about the same issues on their blogs, too.
Of course I am talking about the horrific shootings that went down at Virginia Tech this past Monday.
When I first heard about what went down it was early that day. I had a morning prep at school and had gone online, perusing the headlines. I saw the headline about Virginia Tech, but the hyper link indicated one person was dead. At the time I didn't click on the story. In the name of honesty, I guess I had become desensitized to headlines to the tune of, "one person dead". I remember sleep walking through the initial news of 9/11 in a similar fashion, not realizing its initial magnitude. You think I would have learned my lesson. It's sad but it's true, we all seem to hear about some sort of tragedy on a daily basis. If I watched the news faithfully, I'd be downright depressed.
It was a busy day, as most are, so I didn't get to read the headlines after that. Imagine my surprise when my friend asked me at 3 o'clock if I had heard the news. I said I had heard about the person who died. That's when she told me that it was more than 30 people, plural.
When something major and tragic occurs my first instinct is to run in the other direction. We all know that ugliness exists in this world. You may agree with me though that it's somehow comforting not to think about just how much tragedy there really is going out there. But when tragedy hits closer to home, it makes us more aware. I don't know why this is. It's not like an earthquake killing 30 people in China isn't equally as sad. Tragedy should not be measured in terms of proximity. Except we all do it. We relate when it's "one of our own", a term that means different things to different people.
This being said, I'm sure people who live in Virginia felt harder hit by the event. College students in particular would identify more with the feeling of fear many of the students living or attending classes on campus probably had. I know when I saw the picturesque setting on campus I instantly made connections to my own college days, imagining suddenly feeling so safe in a place where I would expect the exact opposite.
My next thoughts then always jump to the why did this happen, quickly followed by the how. On the surface, the why seems like an easy enough answer. Here was a young man who says his motive was society itself, the rich in particular. One need not dig too much deeper though to know that this was the act of a tortured soul, looking for someone or something to blame, and to mirror what I can only assume were years of inner pain.
I don't believe, however, that people are inherently evil. When someone does something so sadistic, something horribly wrong, I believe something was usually done to them in some way, shape or form. It didn't matter if this can be traced to an isolated incident or not. All it takes is the person in question to feel it is real. The feeling alone is all that matters for it to become real in minds of these individuals.
Unfortunately, mass chaos breaks out when people try hard to control the uncontrollable. In this case, the wish is for absolute safety. Should officials at the Virginia Tech campus chosen a more effective means of getting warnings out to out on campus? Most definitely. Would it have changed the events that eventually transpired just a few short hours later? Perhaps. But we'll never know for sure. The bottom line is twisted minds are also often the minds of determined people. Sure, he might have not succeeded that day, but there's always the next day or the one after that.
There are also other factors at play here. To place blame squarely on the shoulders of the campus authorities isn't fair. If we're being honest with ourselves, events like these are usually brewing on the stove for awhile before they boil over. Hindsight is always 20/20. Why for instance, was it so easy for this guy to get a gun? What reason did he have for needing it and did anyone even ask? Why did more people not just dismiss him as a "weird guy" on campus and instead not heed the warnings of professors and students who rightfully sensed something wasn't right with this guy years ago? And what about his family? Is this man a product of a tortured environment or are some people just born into path of isolation and destruction?
Anything we can say about the event, the victims or the shooter are now and will always be speculation. It makes me sick to think of what he did, but it makes me feel even worse to think of the media's response to what he did. While my first instinct is to run and hide, the media's first instinct is to dream up a classic catch phrase and compete against each other for the juiciest lead. Events like this are precisely why I could never be a news reporter.
We are, no doubt, going to learn more about this man for months to come. The bigger question though is if we will learn from the events that transpired. We have already learned that this event was premeditated, as illustrated by the fact that he went to the post office and sent a package to NBC, detailing the events that were about to happen. Now the debate becomes whether or not we should sensationalize his actions. After all, isn't this the problem in a nutshell? The whole thing is brimming over with irony. He hates society and now he has become fodder for the type of situation that he would no date, hate if he were alive.
In some small way I think that is what connects all of us, the weak the strong, the sick and the sane. We all know something is wrong with the world. It's almost as if we are living in one big game. The bigger question is this: Are you going to stand on the sidelines and wait for someone else to play, are you going to making the winning shot or are you going to cheat to get to the top?
We all react to the game of life. It just depends on where you are standing while the game is being played.
But sometimes things happen that are so major it seems wrong not to acknowledge them. Then, when you finally sit down to put your thoughts into words, the words just don't see to come out the way you want them to. Anything that does come out instead feels hollow and redundant, especially considering the fact that everyone is usually talking about the same issues on their blogs, too.
Of course I am talking about the horrific shootings that went down at Virginia Tech this past Monday.
When I first heard about what went down it was early that day. I had a morning prep at school and had gone online, perusing the headlines. I saw the headline about Virginia Tech, but the hyper link indicated one person was dead. At the time I didn't click on the story. In the name of honesty, I guess I had become desensitized to headlines to the tune of, "one person dead". I remember sleep walking through the initial news of 9/11 in a similar fashion, not realizing its initial magnitude. You think I would have learned my lesson. It's sad but it's true, we all seem to hear about some sort of tragedy on a daily basis. If I watched the news faithfully, I'd be downright depressed.
It was a busy day, as most are, so I didn't get to read the headlines after that. Imagine my surprise when my friend asked me at 3 o'clock if I had heard the news. I said I had heard about the person who died. That's when she told me that it was more than 30 people, plural.
When something major and tragic occurs my first instinct is to run in the other direction. We all know that ugliness exists in this world. You may agree with me though that it's somehow comforting not to think about just how much tragedy there really is going out there. But when tragedy hits closer to home, it makes us more aware. I don't know why this is. It's not like an earthquake killing 30 people in China isn't equally as sad. Tragedy should not be measured in terms of proximity. Except we all do it. We relate when it's "one of our own", a term that means different things to different people.
This being said, I'm sure people who live in Virginia felt harder hit by the event. College students in particular would identify more with the feeling of fear many of the students living or attending classes on campus probably had. I know when I saw the picturesque setting on campus I instantly made connections to my own college days, imagining suddenly feeling so safe in a place where I would expect the exact opposite.
My next thoughts then always jump to the why did this happen, quickly followed by the how. On the surface, the why seems like an easy enough answer. Here was a young man who says his motive was society itself, the rich in particular. One need not dig too much deeper though to know that this was the act of a tortured soul, looking for someone or something to blame, and to mirror what I can only assume were years of inner pain.
I don't believe, however, that people are inherently evil. When someone does something so sadistic, something horribly wrong, I believe something was usually done to them in some way, shape or form. It didn't matter if this can be traced to an isolated incident or not. All it takes is the person in question to feel it is real. The feeling alone is all that matters for it to become real in minds of these individuals.
Unfortunately, mass chaos breaks out when people try hard to control the uncontrollable. In this case, the wish is for absolute safety. Should officials at the Virginia Tech campus chosen a more effective means of getting warnings out to out on campus? Most definitely. Would it have changed the events that eventually transpired just a few short hours later? Perhaps. But we'll never know for sure. The bottom line is twisted minds are also often the minds of determined people. Sure, he might have not succeeded that day, but there's always the next day or the one after that.
There are also other factors at play here. To place blame squarely on the shoulders of the campus authorities isn't fair. If we're being honest with ourselves, events like these are usually brewing on the stove for awhile before they boil over. Hindsight is always 20/20. Why for instance, was it so easy for this guy to get a gun? What reason did he have for needing it and did anyone even ask? Why did more people not just dismiss him as a "weird guy" on campus and instead not heed the warnings of professors and students who rightfully sensed something wasn't right with this guy years ago? And what about his family? Is this man a product of a tortured environment or are some people just born into path of isolation and destruction?
Anything we can say about the event, the victims or the shooter are now and will always be speculation. It makes me sick to think of what he did, but it makes me feel even worse to think of the media's response to what he did. While my first instinct is to run and hide, the media's first instinct is to dream up a classic catch phrase and compete against each other for the juiciest lead. Events like this are precisely why I could never be a news reporter.
We are, no doubt, going to learn more about this man for months to come. The bigger question though is if we will learn from the events that transpired. We have already learned that this event was premeditated, as illustrated by the fact that he went to the post office and sent a package to NBC, detailing the events that were about to happen. Now the debate becomes whether or not we should sensationalize his actions. After all, isn't this the problem in a nutshell? The whole thing is brimming over with irony. He hates society and now he has become fodder for the type of situation that he would no date, hate if he were alive.
In some small way I think that is what connects all of us, the weak the strong, the sick and the sane. We all know something is wrong with the world. It's almost as if we are living in one big game. The bigger question is this: Are you going to stand on the sidelines and wait for someone else to play, are you going to making the winning shot or are you going to cheat to get to the top?
We all react to the game of life. It just depends on where you are standing while the game is being played.
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