Only Questions
It is less than 48 hours after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado and already everything that can be said or written about the event has been said and written about it. Such is the speed with which we leer in this our modern world.
I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere there is a “quiet” or “withdrawn” man watching all this go down in the media and seeing it as a chance at personal glory. The feeling of being a nobody weighs heavily on the hearts of many, especially those with a greatly inflated sense of self-worth. Infamy is a sure way out. We all hate James Holmes and we can’t stop talking about him. He is everywhere. He is bigger than the summer blockbuster he destroyed. And since he didn’t choose suicide, as these types of people so often do, he is going to be around to be poked and prodded and thought about. Books will be written about him. I predict many. Someday, perhaps, an exclusive interview may be obtained and it will be a “television event”. And somewhere there is a quiet and withdrawn man with a massive ego on the one hand and complete nobody-ness on the other watching it all.
Closely.
People talk emptily about gun control, violence in films and video games. They talk ideology on the right or the left and point out how our society is the most over-medicated in history. “If only,” is all they’re really saying. “If only this or if only that,” and it rings hollow and thudding and meaningless.
Someone once said “You can’t regulate crazy,” and it’s true, despite the best (and very profitable) efforts of Big Pharma to do so. But what happened in Aurora on Friday was not crazy, it was evil—pure and simple. And for evil, unfortunately, we have no answers.
