Motivated
I haven't been motivated to keep an online journal of my thoughts an experiences for a while now. That changed yesterday. That all changed when a 23-year-old South Korean student at Virginia Tech decided that it was okay to take a gun, point it at more than 50 other people, and pull the trigger repeatedly. Hospitals are reporting that each victim (including the survivors) suffered at least three bullet wounds. It only takes one to kill a person. 32 people found that out the hard way.
How does this happen? What drives a person to kill other people with no regard. In a society that has zero tolerance for murder why do we let it go on. How can we continue with our lives knowing that each and every one of us has a hand in the deaths of every one of those students?
Outcast. Shy. Reclusive. Unpopular. Minority. These are words that are already beginning to surface in the investigation into exactly who Cho Seung-Hui is... was. A lot of people fall into these social groupings. They don't like other people. They were scorned in childhood or adolescence and the scars left on their psyche never healed. I have known people like this. Hatred and negativity bestowed upon them by society drives them into seclusion. The seclusion drives them mad. The madness drives them to kill.
Video games. Since the Columbine atrocity in 1999, Video Games have grown to mean so much more than Pong and Pac-Man to a generation that grew up with black & white television. The 60+ community, on the whole, does not understand the world of video gaming. It is a world like reality but wholly different because it doesn't exist in conventional terms.
We live in a world of two worlds. One of these worlds exists outside your front door. The other world exists inside of your computer. Some people (most likely no one who reads this) will ignore the existence of the virtual world. They don't see it as something of substance and therefore it can't be compared to reality. Other people exist seemlessly in both worlds. We travel fluidly from one into the other. Our lives exist both within and without. Then there are those who retreat from one into the other. The real world is a terrifying place at times. That fear drives some into the safety of a world with a "reset" button.
Some eventually forget how to draw a line between the two worlds. These people need help. They will never get it. You have to give it to them. People need to learn how to exist in this world without hurting other people. It happens all too often and the consequences can be devastating. Nearly every act of violence stems from one person hurting another person and the victim taking it out on other people.
Don't let your friends, your family, your co-workers, your neighbors, your enemies, your teachers, your students, your roomates, your boyfriends, girlfriends, or anyone abandon this world for one built in cyberspace. I've lived in that world. That world kills people. They become something less.
The point of my story? For a long time society has held the view that "friends don't let friends..." and you can fill in the rest. This needs to stop. People shouldn't let people harm themselves or others. Forget "friends dont let friends drink and drive." People don't let people drink and drive. The burden of responsibility to better our society falls on every single one of us.
What drives a person to kill other people? The belief that not a single other person in the world acknowledges your existence. I can assure you it is what Cho Seung-Hui was thinking and probably what Klebold and Harris were thinking. "If they don't want me to exist, then I'll make sure none of them get to exist either."
You can stop this before it happens. Please.