Thoughts on Aurora Batman shootings, and others

There has been a lot going on lately: Work, play, keeping the house at least somewhat presentable (yeah, right), yoga, etc. I have been trying to get up early to write before work, and that just hasn't been happening. I feel like my health is slipping backwards again, and the fatigue is coming back. I'm ready to go to my doctor and say, "ok, we've looked at obvious things, let's look at not-so-obvious things." It feels like something physical. Maybe the key is doing yoga every day again, maybe the key is 9 hours of sleep per night like my physiotherapist suggested. Or maybe there really is something wrong.

When I'm tired all the time, my creativity suffers, because my brain doesn't feel like it operates at its full capacity. Not only do I feel like I have nothing to write about, but writing it in a witty or creative way is even difficult. So, I apologize for not updating, and for my updates to potentially be boring.

Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Colorado is my home state, but I don't live there anymore. When I first heard about it, I was pretty shaken up. I have friends in Aurora, who are Batman fans, and would have potentially gone to a midnight showing of the newest movie. I didn't know any of the victims, however. It's so tragic. I don't understand how people can be so crazy, and I don't think anyone ever will. I actually think something that makes people do these things is, well, society. We go on about how people should "fit in" and act a certain way, and think a certain way, otherwise they are on the fringe and they are "crazy." But honestly, the way we live is pretty damaging, I think. We are so separate, so isolated, we don't live in communities anymore. We may have social communities, but very few of us actually grow our food together, raise our children together, and build community that we live in together. I think that most people have been able to conform to the way we live pretty well - though so many people complain about how they have to work, and how they have to deal with bureaucracy, etc. But some people just take it further and go "crazy."

I haven't seen anything mentioning what the shooting suspect's motive was yet...But oftentimes these kinds of things are motivated by feeling left out, unfulfilled, not part of society, like everyone has wronged them. They just don't "fit in" and the only way to get the point across is it do something drastic a la Columbine High Schoolthe Amish school shooting (apparently he was acting out to "receive revenge for something that happened 20 years ago"), and Virginia Tech (the killer said in a note: "You caused me to do this"). But we don't listen to these people, or see the warning signs, or do anything to prevent these things.

Why aren't we listening and paying attention? Why aren't we seeing the patterns and trying to do something to prevent these types of things? I'm not saying that they are in the right, or that they should have dealt with their issues in the way they did, but they had valid concerns and complaints, and they festered inside of them for years and years until they finally snapped. But, is the real solution making people conform to what we think they should be, or changing society?

Honestly, I don't have an answer. But it's something to think about.

Maybe we'll never be able to prevent things like this. But I really think the fact that we are so separated, that we lack community, that we live in separate boxes, that we work in separate boxes, has made people feel unfulfilled. And I think that if we lived how our ancestors did, in groups where everyone was supported, everyone worked together, raised children together, etc., we wouldn't have as many mental issues (if any at all), and people wouldn't "snap."

Not that everyone can live like this these days. But it makes "intentional communities" more attractive to me. I wouldn't mind having a constant support system and community that is there for me, and being there for them.




0 comments:

Post a Comment