The world is sick

                                                    

I watch recently released video footage of this James Holmes kid sitting in court, 24 years old and his life is over, just like many others of his kind. I look at other recently released video of him when he was 18 and in school, this brilliant and shy science weirdo with a bright future ahead of him and i wonder what the hell happened. There is talk that his later academic ventures were a bit of a crash and burn and i wonder if that was part of a greater breaking point for him. 

We live in a world where our first world problems are stress, ridiculous amounts of work and striving to be the best you can be as long as it's better than the next person. And for a person who is already mentally ill, painfully shy and trying to do your best, failure can be the worst thing ever. Failure can be the deadly sin that makes you snap out and kill 12 people.

I don't for a second condone violent behavior and I would hope that James gets the help and justice that he needs. I hope for all of those affected and crushed by his unspeakable act that he sits for a very long time in silence and grows to understand and know the pain that his actions have caused. 

But i can't help but feel profoundly sad for him......not because he is now due to spend the rest of his life in jail, if he even makes it past a few years from now.

I'm sure there are many who'd revel in his suffering and eventual gory death.....and maybe this is why it makes me sad. Because, here's a kid who had an undiagnosed fucked up thing in his head that exploded because something in his life went wrong. Here is a kid who slipped under the stupidly large cracks of our first world society and did something totally mind numbing and now those involved, in hindsight, are saying "Oh yeah, that thing he said or did WAS kind of weird, now that i think about it". 

Dude bought fucking guns from his local Safeway and "buckets" of ammunition off the internet. Dude was a science geek who knew how to rig explosives to blow people apart. Dude walked into a theater in riot gear set to wage war. Dude was so out of his head that he thought he was a villain from Gotham city or some shit. And clearly, dude had nobody around him to see that there was something seriously wrong and that he needed some help. 

I watch recently released video of this James Holmes kid and i see someone who has been, and allowed themselves to be, lost in the shuffle of life. 
But maybe this is just how life is nowadays....

I observe this 24 year old kid and i see a messed up being who hasn't slept for a few days, who is scared, humbled into the cold dirt and who has probably lived with an undiagnosed form of schizophrenia for most of his life....and i just feel so damned sad. For the 12 lives snuffed out that night. For the 70 injured. For the countless others directly and indirectly rocked by this stupid and senseless act. And for James, this wild eyed mentally ill idiot boy who let his world spiral out of control and away from him. 

Believe me, i don't condone his actions at all. In fact, i am sickened by them. But in the same breath i am also sickened over the fact that we live in a world with too many people, too many pressures, too many hang-ups, too many drugs and too much striving to be awesome, and for some, seemingly not enough room to be a failure. 

Maybe I'm being naive. 

Maybe it's uneducated to think that with a little love and nurturing we'd all be ok, but maybe this is the world i also choose or eventually hope to live in. 

I've seen enough to know that help is out there, but I've also seen enough to know that it is easy to go along unnoticed. And maybe that is what is so scary and sad to me, that some of us are one shitty day away from snapping out and doing something horrible to ourselves or to others. 

I wish that i didn't have to hear about these things.

I wish that I had more insight and knowledge to understand.

I wish that i didn't feel so damned much. For them, for him, for all of us....

I wish for all of those who know how to love themselves to keep loving themselves and to provide shelter for those who don't know any better. 

I wish for all of those who don't know any better to have people around who know how to help them.

Please rest easy crazy people and sane alike. We're all in the same boat and can only hope that there is someone who will guide us through our darkest days and beyond.

Much love and peace.

N