Let us sit upon the ground...

...and tell sad stories of the death of kings.

Richard II Act 3 scene 2

Today is weird. I feel...melancholy? Depressed? Hmm...somber: that's it....somber.

Every time (sad that I need to use that phrase) there is another shooting rampage on a campus, I am more and more affected by it. I'm not scared but I am worried. It makes me sad...duh..everyone should be that way about it. It probably doesn't help that my chest hurts from allergies and it is hard to breath today. The dark weather attributes to it as well.

I was teaching about analogies today so beware that there will be a few in here. Uh oh, here comes one: When you are young tragedies and serious situations roll of fairly fast like water on a duck's back but as we get older the oil that makes this take place gets diluted, or, as in my case, I don't have as many "feathers" up there as when I was younger. It gets harder to let these things roll off and let life go on. Well, it is easier for some people in one very sad way. By sheer numbers of incidents, we become more and more inured (had to look up my spelling on that one) to it and that is a tragedy unto itself.

*sigh* Someone just said it started snowing...I am in class by the way. They are writing analogies so I writing analogies.

I find it a bit alarming how quickly and easily we throw words like insane or disturbed as if these give excuse to actions such as killing. As a world, we are uncomfortable with assigning rationality or sanity to those who chose to drastically violate deeply held social laws like pre-meditated murder. We are quick to try and find some excuse or reason to put such abhorrent people in a separate category from the rest of us; if we don't then we must admit they are the same as us but just made different choices.

Lucifer made a choice. He was the same as us, no, better than many of us as the descriptions tell us. He made a choice. His choice doesn't make sense to many of us and could be considered insane or disturbed, but I contest it was a rational choice. I like Milton's explanation the best for his motivation: "It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." The fact that most of these gunmen kill themselves at the end goes further to prove my point. It was planned, thought out, and put into action carefully. They kill themselves to alleviate any consequences to their actions. "The ends justify the means?" No...the "means" justifies the end.

I worry about it happening here: wherever my "here" is at the time. I know what it felt like for those instructors, students, staff as the shots rang out. Liviu Librescu, a holocaust survivor, barred his door to allow his students to reach safety at the cost of his life. To have survived the harrowing experience of the holocaust only to die in a campus shooting? No, you misunderstand if that is your view of this. He gave his life nobly. He made a choice, too. It was the right choice in a very wrong situation.

John Donne - Mediation XVII

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Professor Librescu understood this quote. I actually told my students that this came from a meditation (blank stares) but if it were done in our time period we would refer to it as a...come on....you guessed it? Blog. Donne's Blog XVII. I do hope Mr. Donne (Father Donne?) will forgive me but the blank stares went away to be filled with understanding. Wow, if Shakespeare had a blog...cool.

Well, the cathartic effect has taken place. I do feel better now. Thanks for putting up with it.

Until next time...

Opus