Big News in a Small Town: Reflections on the Blacksburg Tragedy

I'm one of those writers that has a blog in which I freely posit theories and engage in a lot of the cynical commentary that has shaped and formed the way in which freelance journalism is perceived in American culture; love or hate it, the profession has become a bit more interesting to the outside world in spite of it. Rather than deal directly with political issues, however, I like to appeal to the individual that isn't as inclined to know anything more about politics than I do, and would rather pontificate what few lessons we can learn from current events. Many of you probably do the same; yesterday my wife had asked if I commented on the shootings at Virginia Tech, after talking about how I was still discussing the fallout that had occurred over the comments that Imus made concerning the Rutgers University womens basketball team. I said that I hadn't, respectfully, because I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about. I mentioned that I hadn't commented on the World Trade Center's destruction for a considerable amount of time, 6 months after that had happened. Actually, when I searched back through my records, I hadn't really spoken of that incident until July of last year; I had posited that the airplane that flew into the apartment on 62nd street (elsewhere in New York) immediately brought back images of the WTC to my mind. Before then, I had wrote a number of poems about the event, emblematic of the career of I was still aspiring towards at that time. Many of the poems were unusually angry and cynical in nature, and dealt with the hopelessness and meaningless that life had at that time for me; yet the expression paled in comparison to the empty desperation of which I had felt over the fact of not being published to date, I wanted to see myself in print, and thought that I could use, or rather, exploit my emotions to make life for comfortable for me. I learned from those lessons, and moved on, yet it forced me to grow and move on in ways I never would have had success come to me earlier on, easily.

The best that one can make out of a chaotic situation is to use it as an opportunity to learn how best to move forward and prosper under difficult situations and circumstances. In fact, part of the irony of what occurred in Blacksburg is that it is a more extreme, disturbing take at some of the challenges one is due to face in life after school. True to form, school prepared them as to how to deal with life through facing death head on, by looking into fears eyes dead on and having the resolve to press on; it's a rather disturbing and abstract take on it, but is part of what sets apart a creative individuals will from that of everyone else. Personally, I'm not entirely sure what I would have done; yet I'm sure it'll be easy for the media to compare this event to those of Columbine and other school shootings and even acts of terrorism that have occurred over our brief history, yet there are key differences between this, and what happened on those other days. In fact, what happens on school and university campuses, has to be looked at individually, as opposed to collectively, if we can ever hope to impact a change in the future and create a safer environment for our children.

The incident at Virginia Tech differed from that at Columbine in a few key areas. For one, the Columbine incident dealt with more than one shooter, for another, it was emblematic of the problems that were already going on with the volatile mix of high school, adolescence, rejection, depression and bullying and the general type of indifference that goes on at that time in a young persons life. I wasn't really sure if I could empathize with the shooters as I had experienced all of those issues in high school, a time in which I made a cowardly attempt on my own life the punk's way; trying to drown yourself in pills. But perhaps that mentality; a self-deprecating lack of respect for your own attempts at leaving this earth is part of a larger issue in America. When it comes to suicide, we would rather someone just get it over with already than just continue to listen to their complaints about how bad of a card life has dealt to them. No one wants to deal with the boring, desperate cries of loneliness and depression, few even care. We listen, or rather, we hear what people are saying, but few really want to deal with the problems.

By the time you're the age of Cho Seung-Hui, which was 23; you've been hiding your demons for a while and the idea of talking to someone about your issues is a distant memory. I'm not saying that he could not have been reached, and that this whole thing couldn't have been prevented, but by that age, unless you're already diagnosed with the depression and you're treating it or you're serious enough to do something about it on your own who is going to do it for you? At 23 your parents no longer have any legal right to commit you anyway, if you're not living there in the house, but we really don't know if depression is the real issue. Fact is, we really don't know anything, except that a relationship didn't work out for him. Yet he's 23; relationships aren't supposed to work out, in fact he should have had many more before he settled down and committed to one person anyway. But those are all easy things to say.

That's why I didn't want to talk about this issue; because there is no way to rationalize the behavior of someone with the determination, and the resolve to wreck havoc and create chaos in the lives of the innocent. We like to wrap our minds around it, we want to understand, but we never will. We think that we can get closure, which is something that emotionally, the human mind needs to move on, but we'll never get it. Some of us were somewhat able to cope with the issue of the World Trade Center simply because we went to war with Iraq. That at least made it look as if we were doing something, instead of being forced into a corner and not doing anything at all. But at the end of the day, we're still uncomfortable with what happened, and there is still that fear, that lingering thought, that we could be annihilated again, without reason, without cause. So no, I don't really have much of an opinion on what happened at Virginia Tech, and are unsure if I'm to be angry at anyone, or exactly how to feel about it. Anger hasn't worked for me in the past, and I doubt that I would now.

On the bright side, cynics that say that it is ironic that the press is camping out in Southwest Virginia where supposedly, no big city person would want to be should take more pride in what the area does offer. Some of the nation's most prestigious schools are here, not just Virginia Tech, but respected institutions like Eastern Mennonite University, Bridgewater College, James Madison University, The University of Virginia, and the College of William & Mary. Many of the students who didn't live through the fiasco, and other students that attend the aforementioned colleges and schools elsewhere in Virginia are from the Northeast and other areas of the United States, even overseas. You don't travel across the ocean to go to a small school in the middle of "nowhere" if it doesn't have something to offer, and there isn't a legacy behind it. One of the better moments to arise as a result of this catastrophe was to be able to watch Nikki Giovanni, a distinguished professor there, motivate and uplift the crowd at the memorial service.

Months later when all of this is forgotten and life returns back to normal, this small town of Blacksburg will still press on, educating students and stimulating thought, sparking creativity through which one can answer some of the questions that continue to plague technologists, scientists, and academics everywhere. Virginia Tech will continue to do what it does best, as it always has; prepare students for life, create leaders and empower young minds with the tools that serve as a catalyst through which they can realize their full potential ...