4.16.07

new york, i love you but you're bringing me down (lcd soundsystem).
gloom & doom skies with a sprinkle of heart-heavy edginess.

as i sit here in my cushy office chair, tucked neatly into my little lilac and baby pink-walled cubby hole, i can't help but marvel at the sheer selfish simplicity of the human mind.

i mean, after all, i'm stressed out about such silly silly mundane things. like a lack of a plan for my saturday afternoon and the chilli stain i acquired on my brand new white top. i stress about these things and they consume me. they make me feel like screaming 'i hate myself, my life, this day'. when in fact that's only a knee-jerk reaction to my self-absorbed indulgence.

because if i really stopped to think about it, there are far worse things that could happen.

for example, i could be dead. and my angry screams and furious rants could be blaring from news channels, heard by millions. and my twisted face, contorted with rage, could be plastered on newspapers across the country, to be seen -and loathed and feared- by billions.

i could be a murderer. a murderer who would feel such immense self-loathing, such tremendous hatred for the world, such horrifying loneliness due to self-induced isolation, that only the worst gun rampage in US history could match the pain. i could be a psychopath with a gun, who was genuinely ill but who was ignored, who was left to rot in a pool of shame and desperation. so much so that only a massacre would suffice, only a mindless killing could abate the screams within.

or.
i could be one of the 32 innocents dead. completely unaware that going to school on a snow-flecked april morning would be fatal. completely unaware that the years of living -be it as a triple-major student or as a renowned professor- would become infamous ...immortalised... in the moment of sudden death.

or i could be one of the mourners. a lover, a friend, a mother, a father, a child. i could be grieving the loss of part of my heart. my baby, my supporter, my life, my hope. gone in a moment. a shower-of-bullets-fury-and-hatred-and-fear moment. a moment that will change the lives and hearts of too many.

i don't know how i feel about the virginia tech massacre. i don't even know if i have the right to feel anything. how can i feel pity for the murderer, how can i feel anger toward him? how can i truly mourn the loss of those precious lives? how can i make an honest judgement?

all i know is .. i have plenty to be grateful for. and i also know that such a tragedy as this one calls for love, for compassion, for hope -and not for judgement.

i was terribly disturbed when i saw the videos and photos of cho seung hui. what an angry, confused and isolated young man.

i wonder what his parents think. i wonder how they feel.

he was invisible in life but became infamous -and will become feared and hated- in death. what a horrifying thought. what a horrifying cry for attention, for help. what an unfathomably horrific reason for innocent lives to be lost.

remember the dead and pray for their souls and their families (in their honour: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/index.html)

just as columbine will be remembered -for the lost, for the suffering, for the lessons learned. remember virginia tech. 4/16/07.