Own Yourself

Well folks here is some more of my ramblings. I doubt much of this will makes sense and most of it will be contradictory since I have such conflicted emotions on the matter so I warn you now.1

I was watching some video on youtube a couple days ago and when it was done a video popped up after about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and the Colombine Massacre. So this happened in 4/20/1999 (Hitlers birthday, the mastermind behind the most horrific example of genocide in human history) which at the time my daugher was just about to turn one. I remember how the media blew this into mass hysteria and feeling absolutely terrified for my own childrens futures. I distinctly recall holding this beautiful fragile baby girl in my arms and crying for those that had lost their own beautiful fragile children and feeling fear. So I sifted through all the media dramactized malarky. I watched the tapes and the doctumentaries and read Harris and Klebold's journals. 2

I seen how the media blamed the boys actions on horror/violent films, music and video games. What nonsense. I was a horror film buff, I listen to Korn and Marilyn Manson I played halo and doom. I will readily admit to use of alchohol and drugs and yeah I was one angry teenager. You didnt see me rampaging around with sawed off shotguns and semi automatic weapons killing everyone in sight. I think that America wanted answers, wanted to feel comfy in their beds at night and that the media fed them the only answers they could. 3

In many of the articles I read it was said that Harris was a physcopath. Maybe he was. Certainly when watching his tapes and reading his journals you get the idea that it is possible. However the only way to truly know this would have been to study his brain wave patterns. Kind of hard to study a persons brain patterns when that persons brain is splattered across a room isnt it. Harris was clinical, methodical, contemptous and loathing of humanity. He had a penchant for guns, weaponary and war. He wanted to become part of the U.S. Military and was exceedingly intelligent, he showed no empathy or compassion for people nor did he seem to have a "conscience", in his journals he said "fuck life, fuck morals, fuck everything", "I hate everything and it feels good". I am disgusted by it yes but thinking back to that age... I felt much the same.. although apparently not to that degree.4

Klebold was dubbed to have been relatively "normal" physciatrists believed that had he not killed himself he possibly could have been "rehabilitated" and could have lived out a normal life. First off how does one become rehabilitated after looking a 15 year old girl in the eyes asking her if she believed in God and when she answered yes shoot her in the face? Hmmm and how does one go about a "normal" life? Seems to me he would have spent the better part of his life being "rehabilitated" and what was left of it spent taking the brunt of societies anger towards what he had done and what others have done since. 5

Again I feel as though the media just fed us a bunch of shit and didnt come out with the reality of the situation. We all get angry, we all ocassionaly feel contempt for society we ALL at times feel trapped by circumstance. Most of us find ways to release it. I write, thats my release thats my freedom. I make a concious choice every fucking day to live my life and NOT shoot my neighbor in the face when he comes over to tell me that he thinks my dog is a menace. Lots of comparisons can be made here folks, it all boils down to our choices. Our individual actions can not be explained away and blamed on other sources. No matter the course of previous actions against you. 6

Life is not fair, people get picked on the strong prey on the weak and this is simply life. We dont have to like it, we dont have to condone it and we definitely do NOT have to become part of what makes it so unbearably hard to live in. I dont have the answers asto why they did it but I refuse to let the media tell me it was something so absolutely ridiculous as movies, music and video games. 7

In the end I think the dividing line between myself and Harris/ Klebold is I DO feel compassion and empathy for them. Despite what they had done I feel this gaping hole in myself for those two boys that could find no escape. I feel it is a travesty for the children that were injured and murdered and everyone that loved them that they never felt the hand of justice. I feel that these boys parents and family were never acknowledged as having been touched with the same amount of loss. My parting words here... own yourself. Own your mistakes as well as your triumphs. 8