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33 dead. Many more injured. One community shattered. One nation shocked and saddened. No easy answers.
That's all I can grasp from this unimaginable tragedy today. There are very few answers right now, and we probably won't get many more for at least a few days. When I first saw the report on the news this morning, I felt like I was going to throw up. I still feel that way right now.
As I write this, I'm having a very difficult time trying to organize my thoughts. They keep dancing from one thing to another. Those poor kids... I feel so sorry for their friends, their families, the communities affected... Why was the two-hour gap allowed to happen? How can somebody do this to other human beings? Where do we go from here? How can we live with ourselves knowing that we are capable of such things?
Information is hard to come by, but the initial reports are saying that the shooter could have been a Chinese national, a man who entered the country on a student visa in August, 2006. Allegedly, the first victim early this morning was the man's ex-girlfriend, shot in her dorm. This information will more than likely be revised in the coming days and weeks, but this is where the rampage seems to have started. There was a two hour pause while chaos engulfed the dormitory, and then the worst of the tragedy unfolded.
This is the year 2007. We're supposed to be at least somewhat civilized toward one another in this country, and on this planet as a whole. Yet, there are still incidents like this. Something makes us angry, and we almost always take one of two routes: Either we bottle up the rage and the hurt and push it deep into the depths of our minds where it can destroy us from within, or we unleash it on those around us and on ourselves to allow it to destroy us from the outside.
Sometimes, it takes years of self-destruction. Other times, it happens in a two hour period that leaves dozens dead.
In terms of war making, our species cannot be topped. Nobody kills like we do. When it comes to peace and talking our problems out and solving issues through reason, we are a miserable failure. When violence ceases to become a problem and instead becomes a solution to our problems, we have failed.
I feel obligated as a person with some sort of conscience, some sort or heart and soul and desire to see peace, to mention the Bush Administration. September 11, 2001 shocked us, and it saddened us, and it made us angry. Taking out the Taliban to capture Osama bin Laden was the right move, but it was horribly executed. As a result, bin Laden is still alive, and Al Qaeda is still operating in the corners of the world. At the time, I understood attacking the "terrorist regime" in Afghanistan. When Iraq began to surface as another target, it no longer made sense.
We could have talked to Iraq, negotiated with them, communicated with them, and checked our intelligence. Saddam Hussein was a problem, but he could have been solved through peace and communication. Instead, the Bush Administration decided violence was the only way to solve the problem of the tyrannical Saddam. Violence became a solution, and not a problem. At times, it has looked like that would be the course that would be followed with North Korea, and Iran. Violence becomes a solution to a problem, and we have failed.
But this is not about the Bush Administration and its various failures. This is about our failure as a society to raise a generation of sensitive people, willing to use words instead of guns, thought instead of violence, and to create peace instead of suffering. Many times, we are taught not to show our true feelings, lest we be exploited or seen as weak. Conflict resolution becomes a secondary method of solving problems, and not the first step. We bottle up our feelings instead of releasing them in a healthy way that is safe to ourselves and safe to those around us.
We're human beings, for God's sake. We feel things. We're not supposed to bottle up our emotions; we're supposed to share them with the world. If something makes us happy, we should smile. If something makes us angry, we should be angry. If we want to cry, we should just cry. This tragedy has very little to do with being angry, but rather being unable to release emotions in a healthy way.
When I was a sophomore in high school, the Columbine shootings happened barely 40 miles from my school. That was the start of a slow, year-long descent into depression and anger. I had suicidal thoughts at times, and I didn't share my feelings. I was bottling them up, and I was headed for some sort of disaster. Thankfully, I had friends and family members who cared about me enough to help me. We need to be there for one another. We need to support and love and care for one another so something like this doesn't happen.
If we can be a shoulder to cry on, a friend to listen to, somebody to share feelings and thoughts with... Maybe we can save a life. Maybe we can save a thousand lives. Right now, we have the desire to be a society of peaceful, loving, caring individuals... but I'm not positive we have the ability yet. We're too set in our ways, too stubborn, too rooted in tradition and prejudice and history to change quickly. It will take years and years to change, assuming we even CAN change.
All that aside, we have failed. We have failed to allow people like the man who killed 32 people and then himself to express their feelings and show their anger in a healthy, non-violent way. We have failed at creating an effective, mandatory system for the next generation to learn as they grow up so they can solve their problems with words, and not fists, knives, guns, and bombs. We have failed to protect ourselves from these destructive habits, we have failed to protect our friends from these destructive habits, and we have failed to protect our children from these destructive habits.
We will look in the mirror as a society, and we will see failure. We have failed as a society, and we have failed as a civilization.
But more importantly, we have failed as human beings.
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