last thing for tonight,
and why is it that staring into the eyes of an asian-american, college-age murderer's photo for the first time, an english-major wearing glasses and sporting a haircut i've sported hundreds of times before....is so unnerving?
because i know i'm nothing like him. but the resemblance will always be there, mostly to non-asian ethnicities who have a harder time telling people apart. but the uncanny details still haunt me. why? is it because it makes me wonder....what made this kid, someone who by all rights should be normal, safe, happy, loved, like me....what made this kid ...so different?
could he have been me, if someone had loved him more, raised him differently, sent him to a therapist?
could i - you - ANY of us - be him, if we had lived his life? who knows what turned him to evil? what events, what background, what personal experiences? who knows why he couldn't defeat the evil within him, the evil that lies as a potential in all human beings but which the majority of us root out?
fuck, even among my close circles of friends and relatives i can say i know people who have had to face almost all of the shittiest situations in life....i dont know anyone who's starved to death but i've known a lot of other family secrets, black sheeps. it makes me even more proud of all the people i do know who've had to face up to their challenged, who have had the good fortune to have supportive people around them, who have been blessed with the OPPORTUNITIES to change, to get better...
who knows if Seung-Hui Cho had these opportunities?
well, we know one of his past english professors asked him to seek counseling, and that he didn't. why not?
and while i don't really have compassion for the choices of THIS person, who bears this name and chose to do this deed, as a fellow human i have compassion for his SOUL. i think about how this lost soul just tied himself to the lives of 30 others....how he will spend the next, who knows, 100, 200, 300 years and reincarnations paying back this debt...he will owe much, and the price will be high...but the damage for this lifetime is done.
dont take this out of ccontext and make me sound like a psychopath, but: ok, i kind of "get" as in i can understand why someone might end up choosing to murder, to take someone else's life. maybe he wants revenge, maybe he hates the person, whatever. and i can kinda "get" someone who wants to commit suicide, 'cause i've been there before (a lot of us have) and it's "understandable," yeah? but what i DON'T get - is if you're already fucking cowardly enough to want to kill yourself, fucking apathetic, impatient, lazy, and self-centered enough (ok maybe those things don't apply to every suicidal teen), HOW can you also be even MORE FUCKING COWARDLY enough to take down a bunch of other people with you? and if you're going to fucking kill someone how DARE you kill yourself, too? kill a man and fucking OWN UP TO IT. TAKE the consequences. DEFEND your cause if you fucking dare - even though no one will be on your side. but still....just...i dont know, maybe it's a poor and irrelevant distinction i'm trying to make here - but i just DON'T get the people who want to do BOTH. how can you be THAT much of a shithole? if you really hate humanity so much, kill people and GLOAT. kil lpeople and own up to it! how does killing yourself further whatever cause it was that made you decide to kill others in the first place? freaking hell...and if you're already going to kill yourself, there really is no fcking point in taking down others before you. i just DONT.GET.IT.
and maybe that's a good thing.
because i know i'm nothing like him. but the resemblance will always be there, mostly to non-asian ethnicities who have a harder time telling people apart. but the uncanny details still haunt me. why? is it because it makes me wonder....what made this kid, someone who by all rights should be normal, safe, happy, loved, like me....what made this kid ...so different?
could he have been me, if someone had loved him more, raised him differently, sent him to a therapist?
could i - you - ANY of us - be him, if we had lived his life? who knows what turned him to evil? what events, what background, what personal experiences? who knows why he couldn't defeat the evil within him, the evil that lies as a potential in all human beings but which the majority of us root out?
fuck, even among my close circles of friends and relatives i can say i know people who have had to face almost all of the shittiest situations in life....i dont know anyone who's starved to death but i've known a lot of other family secrets, black sheeps. it makes me even more proud of all the people i do know who've had to face up to their challenged, who have had the good fortune to have supportive people around them, who have been blessed with the OPPORTUNITIES to change, to get better...
who knows if Seung-Hui Cho had these opportunities?
well, we know one of his past english professors asked him to seek counseling, and that he didn't. why not?
and while i don't really have compassion for the choices of THIS person, who bears this name and chose to do this deed, as a fellow human i have compassion for his SOUL. i think about how this lost soul just tied himself to the lives of 30 others....how he will spend the next, who knows, 100, 200, 300 years and reincarnations paying back this debt...he will owe much, and the price will be high...but the damage for this lifetime is done.
dont take this out of ccontext and make me sound like a psychopath, but: ok, i kind of "get" as in i can understand why someone might end up choosing to murder, to take someone else's life. maybe he wants revenge, maybe he hates the person, whatever. and i can kinda "get" someone who wants to commit suicide, 'cause i've been there before (a lot of us have) and it's "understandable," yeah? but what i DON'T get - is if you're already fucking cowardly enough to want to kill yourself, fucking apathetic, impatient, lazy, and self-centered enough (ok maybe those things don't apply to every suicidal teen), HOW can you also be even MORE FUCKING COWARDLY enough to take down a bunch of other people with you? and if you're going to fucking kill someone how DARE you kill yourself, too? kill a man and fucking OWN UP TO IT. TAKE the consequences. DEFEND your cause if you fucking dare - even though no one will be on your side. but still....just...i dont know, maybe it's a poor and irrelevant distinction i'm trying to make here - but i just DON'T get the people who want to do BOTH. how can you be THAT much of a shithole? if you really hate humanity so much, kill people and GLOAT. kil lpeople and own up to it! how does killing yourself further whatever cause it was that made you decide to kill others in the first place? freaking hell...and if you're already going to kill yourself, there really is no fcking point in taking down others before you. i just DONT.GET.IT.
and maybe that's a good thing.