I just realized today that I didn't blog about the Nothern Illinois shooting on Thursday, which was a terrible shock to the community around here and i imagine having an even bigger effect in DeKalb. I didn't hear about the news until Thursday night, but I definitely should have said something earlier about it cuz it hits very close to home and for those who have passed tragically from that incident, it is just one of those unexplainable things.
These things just goes to show the fraility of life. On this board I talk about fantasy sports, and in life I have a wide variety of eclectic interests like wrestling, law, big brother, spelling bees, and whatnot, but all of those are nothin compared to the most precious thing, life. They do not exist without life. Life is the ultimate gift, and not to sound too preachy or anything but almost every day I wake up I am thankful to be alive, that I can move my body, that I can process thoughts. It is quite a pleasure.
Anyway, the Nothern Illinois University recently got to be more of a disturbing incident for me personally ( and I imagine those in the UIUC college area) upon hearing the news that the gunmen was a grad student here at University of Illinois. Now, what possessed him to go to Northern Illinois to do what he did I have no answer for, but I do know that at 3:00 Thursday afternoon I was in class here, and who knows, given a wide range of different circumstances, I could have been among those killed. I know, obviously there are so many variabilities, a lot of classrooms at UIUC, and a world of possiblities away, and heck, more people probably died last thursday of traffic accidents than school shootings, but the NIU shooting just gives a very disturbing feeling, a feeling of vulnerability unmatched by anything else: that I can die without controlling it at all. It's a very threatening idea, and I just can't brush it out of my mind.
To be less morbid, my take on the NIU shooting is that the shooter had a complex personality in that his girlfriend didn't even have a clue that he was gonna do this. Obviously the guy had to figure he was gonna die afterwards, take his own life at the end of the episode, but from what I've seen reported he really had no motive, unlike the Virginia Tech killer. CNN basically was delving into external causes like him going off of medications, facilitating recurring mental deficiencies or something like that. The whole thing of going to NIU is really what makes it all the more bizarre: there was really no reason to, he had no personal vendetta, sort of a mystery. And that's what's most troubling: The Virginia Tech victims were random killings, they died without even knowing the killer, but the killer himself actually had a reason, he felt he was wronged in some way. In this case, it seemed like the gunman didn't even know himself why he was doing this, to the extent that it seems like a random act of violence, without really any premeditation, caused just by mental problems. That's almost more scary. ( CNN has said going off the meds can't make someone go and shoot up a room full of people, so somethin else was going on), but it's stuff like this that makes me at least wonder how frail I am. So many things are out of my control, it's scary. All I can do is make the best of what I can be and hope to be alive to enjoy it.
Moment of silence for Northern Illinois,
Robert Yan
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