Unlike television comedies, where everything is wrapped up in a neat little bow in 22 minutes plus commercials, real life does not work that way. Like a dog chasing it’s tail, people witnessing the Virginia Tech tragedy are searching for answers. There aren’t any. They want closure. It will not happen. People move on, but the door of pain is never closed. People want to find a reason…a rationale…a logical explanation.
Irrational people act illogically and unreasonably. Period. This is definitional. The gunman was nuts. The squirrels were dancing a jig in his head, and he was probably arguing with them to stop before he went on his rampage. This is not in any way meant to make light of one of the saddest moments in American history. It is simply an attempt to help people focus on what we can do, rather than going down a broken path of confusion.
People do not act good because they want to. They act good because they have to. Yes, people like Mother Teresa come along once in awhile, but the majority of people do the right things for the wrong reasons. You know what? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing. It is better than not doing right at all.
I did not do my homework as a kid because I liked it. I always hated school. I did my homework because I did not want my dad to give me a royal rump kicking, or worse, take away my tv set. I was grounded, and missed the 1982 season Super Bowl between the Dolphins and the Redskins. I still can’t watch clips of that game to this day, remembering all the other kids in school talking about what I missed. I can tell you in 1983, being a Raider fan, my room was spotless and my homework was done well before that Raider-Redskin Super Bowl.
Even people who do selfless acts have a selfish motive that might be in the background. We give to charity because it makes us feel good. My dad is having an angiogram today, and I am reminding God of every positive thing I have ever done in hopes it sways his vote. I obey God (as much as possible) not out of love, but fear of a flamethrower being shoved up my hide lightning bolt style.
Yes, human beings are Machiavellian by nature. It keeps us in check. Police officers, teachers, parents…and yes, God…help us behave, whether we want to or not. In some cases, fear of dying motivates us. It gets old people to take their medicine, obese people to exercise and eat better, spouses to stay faithful (Comic Larry the Cable Guy brilliantly states “Guns don’t kill people. Husbands coming home early kill people”).
So the real danger is when someone has nothing to lose. No fear of being fired from their job. No fear of losing their family…and worst of all, no fear of dying. The worst thing you can do to a person is take away their life. If that does not scare them…well then they are one tough hombre (albeit foolish). Maybe they think they cannot die, that they have divinity in them (It is one thing to talk to God, but whne he starts talking back, that is when the problems begin John Denver style).
The VT killer felt he had nothing to lose. When someone has nothing to lose, they can do whatever they please, and nobody can stop them. How do you stop a guy ready to take his own life? The guy was a screwball, and trying to use logical reasoning on a screwball is like trying to teach a pig to sing. As the t-shirt says, it “wastes your tie and annoys the pig.” This guy was simply nuts.
The one thing people should not confuse is hopelessness and craziness. There is an argument that if some people just had “hope,” they would be better. This argument is used to justify why some poor people in some neighborhoods sell drugs rather than work at McDonalds. The “hope” argument is nonsense. Chris Gardner was a homeless man with a child, and he became a multimillionaire stockbroker (Will Smith gave a standout performance in “The pursuit of happiness). Most people are not that far down, and they don’t become criminals. (I can understand stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family…selling drugs…no way).
This killer was geting a college education. How was he hopeless? Were his student loans that bad? No. He was simply crazy. He believed, falsely, that he had nothing left to lose. We could say that the signs were there, and we should have seen them. Most likely, this is not the case. It is easy to play armchair quarterback. Until technology allows us to enter someone else’s brain and live their life in their place, we will never know the complete picture.
People who will demand more gun control, tighter immigration laws, safer schools, or any number of “solutions,” are trying to put a dog collar around an ant. You can’t see what is not their for the naked eye. Using logical reasoning to understand illogical people is as pointless as it is counterproductive.
Nobody…and I mean nobody…in this country…should feel guilt over what happened. We can feel horror…but not guilt. Not the schools, the police, his fellow students, or even his family (unless new information we do not know about bubbles to the surface).
All we can do is love and care about those we lose, and more importantly, those who are still alive. I pray my dad’s angiogram goes well today, and I pray for the VT survivors. Other than that, there is nothing I can do. No one likes being powerless, but whether it is God or nature, we can all be reduced to rubble in an instant. It is not a comforting feeling, but as soon as we understand that, we can use our precious time on Earth to seek solutions to problems that are solvable by logic, reasoning and understanding.
We have to do this. Unlike the VT killer, most of us are good people…with alot to lose.
eric