It takes a lot. . .I am talking a LOT to bring me down. Considering all that is happening in our little part of the pond, I think that is saying something about how I [we] handle life's ups and downs.
But...but...what the &*^%?
I woke up this morning, sat down at my computer and the first thing I saw? The mass shooting in Colorado. Link to the Washington Post story HERE.
Sigh.
What is going on?
What possesses a 24 year old man, a neuroscience PhD canidate, to go into a packed movie theater and start shooting at hundreds of people he doesn't know. Men, women and children who have never done him a bit of harm? There are 12 people dead and 60 more in the hospital. I canNOT even begin to fathom the terror, the sheer panic those poor people must have been feeling being trapped in a darkened movie theater, choking on some sort of gas as bullets rained down.
I am honestly ashamed to be an American sometimes. I know that isn't very supportive of my birth country - but the shooter is one of our country men. A fellow citizen who killed several more of our own men and women.
Why?!?
It saddens me to my core. I just want to curl up and cry. Cry for the lives lost, those struggling to survive and for the mess that this country is in that a person can purchase weapons and walk, unhindered, into a public place and KILL.
It's as if someone said "Thank you for paying $12.50 to attend your own death. By the way, how was the movie?" I don't mean that in a flip way either. It is just how callous it is all becoming and I struggle to understand it.
What is this world coming too? What. . .How. . .WHAT am I supposed to tell my kids? How the hell do you explain this to them when you don't even understand it yourself? I certainly can't restrict my 20 year old daughter from her computer or the television and what about her little sister? How do I look into my baby's face and tell her, yet again, about the ugliness that exists in this world? How can we sit back and watch as youth loses a bit more of it's wonderful innocence because someone decided to do the most unconscionable thing imaginable?
I feel so powerless. Is anyone safe, anywhere, anymore? Is there anything any of us can do? Sure, we can pray. Pray to a God or to your higher power or to the tree in the back yard - whatever. . .but doesn't it feel like that tree isn't listening anymore?
I do well to stick to blogging about kids, pets and food. I am not particularly eloquent or well-written, but I didn't know where else to turn.
And I didn't want to cry alone.
I could end this post in my usual way, wishing you well and promising to "see you on the flipside", but at the moment it just seems so hollow. It isn't that I wouldn't mean it, I do, every single time I write it. I COUNT on the flipside Tadpoles, believe me. I have to or I would know that my illness had won. . .but I just don't know about the rest of it anymore.
Skippy
11 comments:
It is a horrid thing that happened...and I can't imagine having to explain to kids. I am not sure what this world is coming to and it's sad that you can't feel safe in places. I don't know what the answer is and everything that I have read just sounds so callous. It's days like today when I can't help but think that it's humans that are going to drive humanity to extinction. Hugs and peace to you and your family. And thoughts and prayers to all those who were involved in last night's horrible event.
It is horrible Skip. Seems even a movie theater isn't safe anymore. The sad thing I read in the paper today? When they confronted his Mom she said "yep, you have the right person." As if she knew he was capable of doing this.
I agree, it just makes you want to curl up in a little ball. I will send you extra virtual hugs, okay?
It was despicable, but not necessarily a reflection on being an American (remember the Scotland schoolyard or the recent Norwegian killings?). He was a sick and twisted individual who has been plotting this event for a very long time. Who knows what made him snap? Maybe the same thing that drove him to study neuroscience--not that everyone who does is crazy, but maybe he wanted to understand what made him the way he was?
My husband told me we didn't have all of these mass shootings when we were growing up, but I seem to recall the violence of the mid-60s and the Texas Bell Tower massacre of 1966 quite well. I was 9. He was, ahem, only 6. Maybe that's why he can't recall. We did grow up with it. Hell, right now I live 2 miles from the US Post Office that was the site of a workplace massacre and where the claim "going postal" was born. Humans will always find a way to be cruel to others and it's up to the rest of us not to allow their behavior to alter the ways we seek pleasure or live. Don't let a terrorist like him steal your delight of going to the movies. Go see the movie despite him and for the people who can never see it now (if you even like these movies). We went today. My son, my daughter and I. It was good (if not a little long).
I am deeply saddened by the actions of this one man and the havoc he wreaked upon his fellow humans and the nation. And he didn't even have the guts to take his own life in the end.
Hugs to you, Skippy. You aren't alone in the way you feel.
Keep in mind that people seem to be flipping out all over the place in our supposedly civilized countries. I'm quite sure they flip out elsewhere too, it just isn't as noticeable. The crazies there can join up with a para-military group and get their jitters out in a locally socially acceptable way. We have gangs but they wouldn't welcome some upright guy from the middle class.
I think life is hard and stressful everywhere. But in our countries, we are supposed to have it good - living is advertised as "easy" - make it rich quick - sit back and enjoy! But the reality is that you have to hit it very lucky or work very hard and smart to get that life and keep on being lucky or working hard and smart to keep it. Usually, I think both luck and work is required. But what happens to those who work hard but are struggling and never catch a break? Where is the promised pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Most people learn to accept their lot to some degree and live as best they can but others would find that impossible. I notice that so many of our young people have a sense of entitlement and react violently when they do not get their way.
We have so many many people trying to make it to the top of the heap and it doesn't seem to matter any more whether you get there by honest means or through infamy. Perhaps in the old days, it was a simple thing to get noticed in your small town. Now, there is so much anonymity to fight through - yes we have numerous avenues - sports, stage, internet, politics, business - to make ourselves known but the competition is fierce in all of them. You might have been the number one whatever in your high school but in college, you are a small fish in a big pond and the pond only gets bigger as you get out in the working world.
I do not have any violent tendencies whatsoever, but when I fall into my own crazies, I have an inkling of understanding and am only surprised that we don't see a lot more of this kind of acting out. All the rapes and senseless random murders are further evidence of the cracks in our society. People venting on other people. There is so much pressure to not just conform, but to be perfect physically, mentally, socially and to not just succeed but to impress and amaze everyone else. And do it again! and again! If you can't even make a dent, where does that put you if you believe that you are destined for greatness?
I can't explain the crazies. I can't explain the self-absorbed who don't commit mass violence but harm those around them daily because their wants are more important than basic needs of their children. I can't explain illness but none of us have the key to unlocking that mystery.
There ARE more good, decent, responsible people in the world than the other kind. They don't get the media attention. And media attention leads me to what could become a rant. Why does something like this have to be covered so fully and graphically explicit when after the first few newscasts, there is nothing new to report?
Whether watching the local news or the national, I don't care what "joe-on-the-corner" is tweeting, that 64% of the station's emailers think Tom Cruise's marriage was arranged, or that his divorce is newsworthy on a regular news show. Oh wait...entertainment news IS regular news now. There is a large enough portion of society worshipping celebrity in any shape that a "star" not wearing undies on the red carpet makes the 6:00 news and the favorite foods and music of a homicidal maniac are likely to be broadcast at 11:00.
The over coverage (in my opinion) causes sensationalization as stations try to out-do one another with a story that will create a buzz. At some point in the days following 9/11, I had to turn the TV off. Nothing new was being reported, the hole in our hearts would take a very long time to begin to heal enough for normalcy (sadly, with a new definition) to begin. Seeing the towers fall over and over wasn't helpful.
We aren't going to forget this recent tragedy, the ones that came before or the ones likely to follow. My personal stand is to turn off/turn away from the news that isn't news anymore, maybe never was, and tell my neighbor how great their garden looks, the cashier how nice her new glasses are and to let my loved ones know that I love them.
Try not to let the bastards get you down Skippy, no matter how they present themselves. Now go find Pooldad's and give him "the look" :-)
Evil has always existed, and when it erupts in bouts of senseless violence, I hope good people will always be revolted by it, just as you are, just as I am, and just as countless others around the world are. But we cannot, we must not, allow evil and violence to stifle our spirits or to discourage the good and hopeful. We'll tuck this incident into that sad part of our hearts, and keep on keeping on.
I have seen this on the news and it made me so sad the senseless of it all normal people will never understand how people can do such things so I have stopped trying I just pray the killer along with the victims they all need our prayers. Yes these things seem to be in news so much now days but sometimes I wonder about how the media coverage effects these troubled/deranged people and wonder if some of them just want to get onto the news and do these things towards that end, if that makes any sense.....
I blame the movie, and the movies like it, and the videogames about shooting police officers and beating hookers, and the reality television idiots like Snooki (who is NOT a role-model, despite the fact that stupid people look up to her like she is one) that are constantly fighting with someone(s).
*Sigh*
This horrible event makes me sad as well, and I hope that at least we'll get some awareness out of it and we'll be a small step closer to people actually treating each other like human beings.
Such a sad, tragic event. We were watching Isaiah and Anna when all the news information started coming across the television. Every channel we turned to had the same news. Poor Isaiah was so confused - why would someone do this? He couldn't understand it. He's not alone... I couldn't even begin to explain to him what had happened when I didn't understand it myself. "Crazy" and "deranged" just don't seem powerful enough to describe what that individual did.
Take care... and, I do expect to see you on the flip side. I count on it as well. Take care of yourself.
I'm very sad that someone would just do something like this. He is going to plead insanity, I just know it, but he did a lot of planning to do this awful thing.
You have summed my feeling exactly... wtf? why? There are no answers here....so so very sad!
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