The more I learn, the less I understand.
Yeah, I’ve got the Virginia Tech thing on the brain still. Doesn’t everybody? At some level, I think all humans analyze things trying to answer the Great Questions: How and Why.
In this case, the more information I get, the farther away the answers seem. I don’t know why I should be seeking answers. Maybe I’m trying to figure out if that’s me over there with the gun in my hand. Although no matter what state of mind I get to, it just never occurs to me that I ought to just kill a bunch of random people. In the case of Cho Seung-Hui, “How” evades me. Not “How” did he kill people, that’s immediately obvious to the casual observer. “How” did he become so totally fucked up? What kind of event triggers this reaction? Is there any way to prevent it?
I’m completely dumbfounded by the whole thing. I watched the excerpt of the tape Cho sent to NBC. It was like a mockery of a bad poetry slam. It sounded like this kid drank concentrated hate for breakfast, and shit depression at lunch time. But by all available evidence, he didn’t have a thing wrong in his life. At least, nothing wrong that he didn’t impose upon himself. And so “Why” eludes my grasp as well.
When I was younger, I thought that there was no thing that I could not come to understand if I only studied and analyzed it enough. The older I get, the more things I realize simply are not understandable by a standard mind.
All I want is to understand. And the only answer that seems to be left is “I don’t know.”