Sad and Disturbed

Yesterday, there was a shooting in my hometown at the high school that I graduated from, and the hostilities occurred in the classroom of a teacher who profoundly influenced me during my teenage years.

The news is still coming in as the investigators feel comfortable with revealing certain details, and I must admit that I'm rather shocked that something like this has occurred in Bailey. I'm relatively certain that my response is naive, but it's difficult to imagine something so terrible happening in the small town that I know so intimately.

I'm sad for the community, and I can't get the sick feeling out of my stomach that tells me that something is terribly wrong with humanity. It's the same feeling that I get nearly every time that I read the news, but this time it's a bit more personal and thus, a bit more hard hitting.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't it just a question of life?

Jackals and hyena disembowel antelope whilst they still breath. Chimps eat monkeys when they can catch them and male mantii are eaten by female mantii after copulation.

The only problems with humanity the a highly subjective point of view and massive over crowding.

I am sorry to hear about the shooting though. Its never pleasant when violence occurs in some where like a school.

moif.

Cyan said...

Sigh...

I know that life is often naturally brutal, but it doesn't make it any less disturbing for me. As an animal that was naturally born with emotions and a sensitive disposition, I'm bothered when the jackal desembowels the antelope and causes it pain.

I don't, however, hold the jackal to any moral standard, because it's a jackal, and I'm a human. I feel a bit differently when I'm looking at other humans, because in my understanding of the universe, humans have a unique ability to reason that places them in a greater position of responsibility. That's the main reason why the constant flood of bad news leads to a feeling that humanity is very, very troubled. The reasons for those troubles can certainly be debated (although I'm not sure that I'm up for that right now.)

Mostly, my statement about humanity on this day was more of an emotional purging than anything else, and it probably should't be taken literally.

Cyan said...

BTW...Are you still not able to log-in to comment on my blog? Blogger indicated that they had fixed the problem, so if you can't log-in, it may be a problem with my own individual settings.

moif said...

Test

moif said...

I wonder if Jackals, if granted the gift of reason, would be concerned about their own nature?

Its a curious thought, but perhaps its a characteristic of reason that since it never attains perfection of understanding it will always be prone to doubt..?

I know how you feel though. I have days like that, quite often in fact. I console myself with the observation that generally my observations don't matter, nor does my opinion nor my emotions. I must live within the boundaries of my own moral perception and be content with what I have. Given my great fortune in life, this is quite easy. My only regret is that I don't have the surplus to help other people more.

Cyan said...

Given the way that Jackals interact socially, it's easy to imagine them with very human characteristics, but of course, we can only speculate. As far as we know, they don't have reasoning abilities, but...again, that's just another limitation of our human perspective.

We all work with what our experiences have brought to us.