(no subject)
This is pretty long. And I may change some of it eventually. By the end my head started to hurt a little from thinking.
i cannot stress enough the importance i find in the picking and choosing of the correct words to express myself. sometimes i will begin to speak or write, and i'll have to stop myself mid-sentence because i know the next word i choose will be the most important word of the sentence. it could be a one-syllable word, it could be a one-letter word, but sometimes, that one word, that hinge word, is so important that it verbally paralyzes me in a search for the correct word.
and that one word could take only a moment to make its impact. it could take a minute or two, or maybe it could be so subtle that days later, after you'd thought you'd forgotten anything i had said to you at all, you'd remember that sentence, which contains that one word and the impression it had left upon you. i could have sat down at my computer today, and the first thing i could have typed out to you beautiful people could have been "fuck all of you capalist pigs and consumer whores and fuck america and fuck the war," and based on just that one particularly run-on sentence you'd probably immediately have some kind of idea of who i was - or what it was that i was here to say to you all today. and i wouldn't blame you. matter of fact, i'd have done the same thing. that's just how the human mind works. we take in information and make our best judgements from there.
matter of fact, i could have just said "all of you ugly sons-of-bitches" instead of the words "beautiful people," and that itself could have probably made an impact on your mental image of my mindset and where i'm currently coming from. and yes, some people may make the point that actions speak louder than words; in many cases i find the same to hold true much of the time myself. but standing up and saying something that everyone else is too afraid to say, or saying the one thing that everyone needs to hear, that's an action too, isn't it?
so, to me, words are as important as any action that one could choose to make. think of the way that the word "ugly" can bring a young girl into a downward spiral of self-loathing. or the way that the word "love" can cause her to not stop smiling and blushing, butterflies in her stomache, for as long as she keeps the word in her mind. or the way the word "sacrifice" can bring tears to someone's eyes, the way the word "holocaust" can effect those who had survived, the way the word "pregnant" can drastically alter one's plans for the rest of his or her life. all very heavy words.
"monster" is a heavy word. which brings me to what it is that i want to discuss today.
...hm... no. discuss is the wrong word. "address" would be more appropriate.
i'm sure we're all more than familiar now with the circumstances and the events leading to and surrounding the act of violence which was committed in virginia tech this past week. what with the mindless media loop of reports and letters, the whispers in coffee shops or the screams in protests, it has been, admittedly, a bit hard to avoid, hasn't it?
just to prove my point about words, i could sit and type "that boy was..."
ah.
there's that hinge word. the one that everyone will look at and judge. and they could say "YES! that boy was troubled. a troubled young man who showed all the warning signs." or they could say "no! how dare you have the audacity to say that boy was justified! what he did was violate the rules of society and morality and in no way did he have the right!"
but no, i'm not even here to say what i think about the boy who committed this act - at least not directly. or what i think about the video feeds fed across our television sets and broadband connections 24 hours a day. i'm not even here to say how very sorry i may be to the families of those affected. i just want to talk about that one word. the word monster.
now, i had been aware of the shootings from the day they occurred, possibly not long after it began even, i'm not sure. admittedly, i wasn't following the story too closely, and still am not really, but i first heard from one who had family there. of course, she was concerned; she couldn't get in touch with a sibling of hers who attended classes at virginia tech. as is standard, word spread quickly and most everyone began to scramble for as much information as they could find. it wasn't long, perhaps just a day or so, until the identity of the shooter was revealed. even sooner after that, perhaps, more and more of his background was revealed to the public.
some may call it an invasion of the media on private matters, or some may bring up the the usual finger-pointing and blaming that occurs after such events. after all, as someone said to me the other day, it's almost like clockwork; every year or two, sadly, a troubled young person wakes up, picks up a firearm, and walks off to make headlines. but me? i guess i just kept the shooting victims and those close to them in my thoughts. and spared at least a little time from my day to pray for them, to whoever will listen.
and the information overload began. everywhere i turned, more information had surfaced about the shooter. information about his troubled past, his mental instability, the concern of family and friends in his past, the stories about worried teachers and stageplays about kids who want revenge, kids who want to get even,
kids who want to kill. and i took the information in, and i made my judgements, just as any human mind is likely to do. i'm keeping them to myself for the most part. such discussions usually only lead to heated debate (which as we all know, doesn't usually end as well as formal debates are supposed to).
but then, the other day, as i was readying for work, walking through the kitchen, i saw the daily newspaper sitting there on the table. the chicago tribune - a respectable publication to say the least - was sitting there, front-page up, and the front-page headline, in big, bold text, read: "as campus grieves, monster revealed". and i had to stop and look closer. and i had to read the headline again and again.
now, newspaper writers are probably aware of the impact their choice in words has on their readers. newspapers can sway the public opinion if used for that purpose. newspapers can tell us that politicians are corrupt, or that a civil servant is a hero, and we will read and believe. because we're the masses. that's what we're for.
but "monster revealed"...
that wouldn't be what i'd choose to say.
to me, "monster revealed" is backwards from what i experienced. yes, when i first heard about the shootings, i wondered what kind of man could possibly bring himself to commit such a crime. i would have agreed at that point that this boy was a monster. serial killers, rapists, mass murderers - the types that we would label with that word.
but when you begin to go further into the lives of each of them, it becomes more of a case-by-case judgement. was he in control of himself? did he have the help he needed? did anyone know he needed it? not to say that he was right in any way. i believe that the taking of innocent lives is an almost impossible act to justify. but despite all the finger pointing and blaming, do we really know whose fault it was in the end? he committed the crime, but what drove him to it?
as i learn more and more and try a little bit to piece together the kind of person he was, the less i think i can identify him as a monster, and the more i think that though he was a deeply disturbed individual, he was practically crying out to be stopped before he was driven to such actions. the warning signs were there. but i can't say i know the whole situation. it's about as far from my business as it can get. yet, as i stared at that headline, i couldn't help but feel it was incorrect.
so i took a pen and changed it.
"as campus grieves, monster revealed to be human".
i cannot stress enough the importance i find in the picking and choosing of the correct words to express myself. sometimes i will begin to speak or write, and i'll have to stop myself mid-sentence because i know the next word i choose will be the most important word of the sentence. it could be a one-syllable word, it could be a one-letter word, but sometimes, that one word, that hinge word, is so important that it verbally paralyzes me in a search for the correct word.
and that one word could take only a moment to make its impact. it could take a minute or two, or maybe it could be so subtle that days later, after you'd thought you'd forgotten anything i had said to you at all, you'd remember that sentence, which contains that one word and the impression it had left upon you. i could have sat down at my computer today, and the first thing i could have typed out to you beautiful people could have been "fuck all of you capalist pigs and consumer whores and fuck america and fuck the war," and based on just that one particularly run-on sentence you'd probably immediately have some kind of idea of who i was - or what it was that i was here to say to you all today. and i wouldn't blame you. matter of fact, i'd have done the same thing. that's just how the human mind works. we take in information and make our best judgements from there.
matter of fact, i could have just said "all of you ugly sons-of-bitches" instead of the words "beautiful people," and that itself could have probably made an impact on your mental image of my mindset and where i'm currently coming from. and yes, some people may make the point that actions speak louder than words; in many cases i find the same to hold true much of the time myself. but standing up and saying something that everyone else is too afraid to say, or saying the one thing that everyone needs to hear, that's an action too, isn't it?
so, to me, words are as important as any action that one could choose to make. think of the way that the word "ugly" can bring a young girl into a downward spiral of self-loathing. or the way that the word "love" can cause her to not stop smiling and blushing, butterflies in her stomache, for as long as she keeps the word in her mind. or the way the word "sacrifice" can bring tears to someone's eyes, the way the word "holocaust" can effect those who had survived, the way the word "pregnant" can drastically alter one's plans for the rest of his or her life. all very heavy words.
"monster" is a heavy word. which brings me to what it is that i want to discuss today.
...hm... no. discuss is the wrong word. "address" would be more appropriate.
i'm sure we're all more than familiar now with the circumstances and the events leading to and surrounding the act of violence which was committed in virginia tech this past week. what with the mindless media loop of reports and letters, the whispers in coffee shops or the screams in protests, it has been, admittedly, a bit hard to avoid, hasn't it?
just to prove my point about words, i could sit and type "that boy was..."
ah.
there's that hinge word. the one that everyone will look at and judge. and they could say "YES! that boy was troubled. a troubled young man who showed all the warning signs." or they could say "no! how dare you have the audacity to say that boy was justified! what he did was violate the rules of society and morality and in no way did he have the right!"
but no, i'm not even here to say what i think about the boy who committed this act - at least not directly. or what i think about the video feeds fed across our television sets and broadband connections 24 hours a day. i'm not even here to say how very sorry i may be to the families of those affected. i just want to talk about that one word. the word monster.
now, i had been aware of the shootings from the day they occurred, possibly not long after it began even, i'm not sure. admittedly, i wasn't following the story too closely, and still am not really, but i first heard from one who had family there. of course, she was concerned; she couldn't get in touch with a sibling of hers who attended classes at virginia tech. as is standard, word spread quickly and most everyone began to scramble for as much information as they could find. it wasn't long, perhaps just a day or so, until the identity of the shooter was revealed. even sooner after that, perhaps, more and more of his background was revealed to the public.
some may call it an invasion of the media on private matters, or some may bring up the the usual finger-pointing and blaming that occurs after such events. after all, as someone said to me the other day, it's almost like clockwork; every year or two, sadly, a troubled young person wakes up, picks up a firearm, and walks off to make headlines. but me? i guess i just kept the shooting victims and those close to them in my thoughts. and spared at least a little time from my day to pray for them, to whoever will listen.
and the information overload began. everywhere i turned, more information had surfaced about the shooter. information about his troubled past, his mental instability, the concern of family and friends in his past, the stories about worried teachers and stageplays about kids who want revenge, kids who want to get even,
kids who want to kill. and i took the information in, and i made my judgements, just as any human mind is likely to do. i'm keeping them to myself for the most part. such discussions usually only lead to heated debate (which as we all know, doesn't usually end as well as formal debates are supposed to).
but then, the other day, as i was readying for work, walking through the kitchen, i saw the daily newspaper sitting there on the table. the chicago tribune - a respectable publication to say the least - was sitting there, front-page up, and the front-page headline, in big, bold text, read: "as campus grieves, monster revealed". and i had to stop and look closer. and i had to read the headline again and again.
now, newspaper writers are probably aware of the impact their choice in words has on their readers. newspapers can sway the public opinion if used for that purpose. newspapers can tell us that politicians are corrupt, or that a civil servant is a hero, and we will read and believe. because we're the masses. that's what we're for.
but "monster revealed"...
that wouldn't be what i'd choose to say.
to me, "monster revealed" is backwards from what i experienced. yes, when i first heard about the shootings, i wondered what kind of man could possibly bring himself to commit such a crime. i would have agreed at that point that this boy was a monster. serial killers, rapists, mass murderers - the types that we would label with that word.
but when you begin to go further into the lives of each of them, it becomes more of a case-by-case judgement. was he in control of himself? did he have the help he needed? did anyone know he needed it? not to say that he was right in any way. i believe that the taking of innocent lives is an almost impossible act to justify. but despite all the finger pointing and blaming, do we really know whose fault it was in the end? he committed the crime, but what drove him to it?
as i learn more and more and try a little bit to piece together the kind of person he was, the less i think i can identify him as a monster, and the more i think that though he was a deeply disturbed individual, he was practically crying out to be stopped before he was driven to such actions. the warning signs were there. but i can't say i know the whole situation. it's about as far from my business as it can get. yet, as i stared at that headline, i couldn't help but feel it was incorrect.
so i took a pen and changed it.
"as campus grieves, monster revealed to be human".