Tech

This world can just break your heart sometimes.

All day yesterday (the store's closed Mondays) I was watching this and hoping against hope for some kind of mistake. I mean, the numbers went from 1 dead to 22 dead to 32 dead and I was just irrationally hoping for some kind of correction, the kind that only comes on election night apparently.

I'm pretty sure everyone I know who went to Tech is no longer there. Thankfully I haven't gotten any calls about someone I know being involved. But not too long ago most of the people I consider good friends were going to Tech or living in Blacksburg. I can't imagine what the families and friends are going through right now trying to sort this out and make sense of this madness.

There is something in the air more dangerous than carbon; in the water more dangerous than toxic chemicals and waste. There is an anger in this world at this time that is driving people past sanity and basic human consideration. We see it every day and don't know what we can do about it except hope for the best. But every once in a while we are forced to look it in the face. School shootings, workplace shootings, random violence, the riot as sports victory celebration, Torture Porn (Saw, Turistas, all that crap), all of it symptoms and results of this overwhelming anger. And this anger is the result of something fundamentally wrong with our society.

I don't know where to start. I don't know where to find it or how to fix it. All I know is that capable people are deciding that their lives are over and the way to end it is to take as many others with them as possible. When Columbine happened it was chilling because I was a bad influence or two away from being one of those kids myself once upon a time. I'd daydream about scenarios eerily similar to what ended up happening to those poor people 8 years ago. I was 11 at the time. I was having a rough go of it. And I could kick my 11-year old self for not having written down what it was that brought me out of it because something did. What got me thinking straight again? I watch what happens on a day like yesterday and I wish I had it. That lightning in a bottle, a clue to something that might help us all, might make us all a little safer, a little better to ourselves and each other. All those families and friends didn't deserve to suffer because someone's girlfriend dumped them, or because someone merely wanted to kill themselves. Think about the gall, the lack of humanity it takes to make the leap from suicide to what happened yesterday. I have. Of course all of my best wishes and condolences to the families and friends of those who died and were injured yesterday.

This world just breaks your heart sometimes.