The Aurora Shooting and the Interminable Questions

Another mass shooting in a small Colorado suburb. (I don't even know what part of that sentence is most sickening, "another" or "mass shooting.") The answerable gets asked, for facts soothe the shocked. What How Where When Who go first. After those have settled, the unanswerable haunting Why comes up. Articles vomit their theories; loose gun laws, social inadequacies, negligent parents, media influences, and the maddening mundaneness of the American suburb.

Can we really handle the answer though? How many times did we read Eric Harris' diaries and watch Seung-Hui Cho's homemade videos? How many books will we write, how many weird indie films will we make, how many more pieces to this puzzle do we need before we take responsibility?
Maybe they were insane or maybe they were just a magnified version of us: angry, in pain, and lonely. The disparity lies in their despair and not, I maintain, in their access to weapons, for we all have access to weapons but we do not all go on a shooting rampage.

We collectively ignore the misfits around us, and then we collectively believe that if we take away the means, we will erase the turbulent cause. Not that the argument is unfounded: if we banned cigarettes, we would likely have less cases of lung cancer; if we take guns away from our children, we will likely have less mass murders among our youth. I am absolutely in favor of gun control- if we can prevent the How, then why don't we?- But neither "solution" soothes the cause, and we simply cannot ignore that. Our angry young men will still be angry young men. Their desire to indiscriminately kill others still stirs within them, and what do we intend to do about that? Numb them with Prozac and do away with violent entertainment? Guarantee every child in an American suburb loving and attentive yet ambitious and successful parents who can pay for a college education that will give them a fulfilling career?

Theories and questions don't change the tragedy, the sadness, or the loss. But we must study it, we must ask questions, we must be moved to tears by this, we must scream at the top of our lungs, and we must not stop thinking about it for a moment, for the instant we move on with our lives, it will happen again.

A Day of Elephants and Googling

I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest today. All of my anxiety, sadness and guilt seemed to surface at full-force, and all at once. My current state of limited mobility and isolation didn't help much either. Even though I was telling myself to breathe, the breath seemed to get stuck somewhere between my nostril and my throat, never quite making it to my lungs. I kept telling myself, Just feel the pain, it'll pass. You have to feel it sometimes. But I wanted to disappear. I started to fantasize about re-birth, about life starting over, about the possibility of nothing I've lived through having actually happened.

It was kind of crazy. It's not like I was having an anxiety attack, where there was an end-point in sight. And it's not like I suddenly burst into tears and needed to have a good cry, which also has an end-point in sight. I was just in this general state of extreme unhappiness, and it didn't seem to manifest in any particular way, so it didn't look like it was going to pass. It all made me really uneasy, and I was more than just a little bit worried.

I started to do one of my go-to activities when I'm feeling something I have no idea what to do with: googling said feelings. For a number of reasons, it always seems to help me. The random facts floating around on the internet have a grounding power over me. I learned, for example, that anxiety is mostly related to future dangers and that feeling guilty means I'm probably not a psychopath. It even helped to read the words Sadness is an emotion, over and over again. Reading these more-or-less facts about what I was experiencing made it seem like they were something outside of me, and it calmed me down. I realized that they are human experiences; a "normal" person should live life in such a way that she experiences anxiety, sadness, and guilt. Otherwise, she is probably not living life fully, but rather in avoidance or over-cautious of anything negative. Not that we should go around being reckless; on the contrary, these experiences serve to teach us, and being mindful is part of maturing and growing. I'll always wish I hadn't done certain things, that I had handled many things differently, that I had acted with more awareness in various circumstances. But it's done now. I am human, I will have regrets. Most of us will. It sounds really over-simplified and obvious, but it made me feel a lot better.

I still feel residual anxiety, sadness, and guilt. I'm pretty sure they'll stick around for a while. It's a consequence of taking actions I regret and suffering a great loss. I know that, and I know that from time to time, I'm going to have a day like today, of extreme unhappiness. I'll still replay past scenarios in my head and end them differently, I'll still send out apologetic and compassionate vibes, I'll still hope for make-up encounters in my dreams, I'll still stare out into space and wonder "what if". Maybe these are all rather pointless tasks, and I know they don't have the power to change anything, but they're part of my coping and healing process, so I'm not in a rush to replace them with useful, productive activities.

I'm not "all better", but the elephant has lifted some of its weight from my chest, and my throat has stopped intercepting my breath, which is a great relief. I learned that, sometimes, basic truths, or even general uncertified opinions on the internet, can help me get through the days that overwhelm me. Not the most sophisticated place to find relief, perhaps, but it worked nonetheless.

I'll end with a quote my research today lead me to, from new-age-spirituality.com (yes, that's right- that should clue you in to my desperation level).

"What's done is done and never can be altered. If we have adapted and grown as a result then be satisfied the experience was worthwhile. Never give up. If we have failed to achieve a particular objective first time around it does not make it unattainable. Learn the lessons, grow stronger, and try, try again."

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Here's to learning the lessons, growing stronger, and trying again.

Image from here.