Random Derangement
There are no sureties in life. No guarantees that the universe will unfold for one as one would wish it to. People can be inspired and can aspire to achieve their goals, but events can and do intervene to disappoint ambition and life-goals. Nor can parents, wishing the very best for their children, always hope to see their wishes come to fruition. People die.And in the most ambiguously unanticipated ways. A vehicle slides on an icy bridge, into a frigid body of water below on a dark night when no one else is around. A lone hiker in a wilderness area confronts an angry bear, a cougar, a psychopath. But we don't think of such things. If we did feel that life was fraught with such danger we would be frozen into inaction.
Around every corner, unseen until one turns into the corner, danger lurks. An unspeakable dread would descend upon our psyches, we would be incapable of viewing life and its opportunities as an open book, to be read and acted upon, making choices to enhance our views of ourselves and our futures.
Then, quietly, danger raises its head and no one is prepared, no one could possibly foresee what might occur when a troubled mind is trapped inside its darkly menacing interior and the spirit has no way of rising above the mind's trapped depths. That person becomes a predator, not himself, but someone else entirely.
Drama aside, it is a reality. Another instance where students are assembled in an institute of learning only to have their lives surrendered by forces outside their own ability to control. As happened at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, with the death of five students, the wounding of another 16. And, just coincidentally, the suicide of the murderer.
Murderer. "He was an outstanding student. He was someone who was revered by the faculty and staff and students alike. We had no indication at all that this would be the type of person to engage in this type of activity."
A graduate student in social work.
A wicked joke of natural selection gone awry.
Labels: Social-Cultural Deviations, That's Life
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 16, 2008
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