» 
» It surprised me yesterday .. when I heard the news of the elementary school shooting there in Newtown .. that I did not identify with the parents, but rather with the kids.
Shooting First Graders?
I wasnt trying to, mind you .. to empathize with the kids. (Sympathize with. Feel for. Think of.)
I've had the most horrible dreams .. where I lose the Bug. Nightmares. Downright terrifying ..
.. where I wake covered in sweat. Exhausted. Both physically and emotionally. All day. Merely existing .. until I crawl back into bed at night.
[ And I am simply talking about 'losing' .. as in "can't find" or "can't locate" .. and not as in » dead forever & ever.
So that's why I thought (expected) that I would identify with the parents. Because I *are* a parent.
What the Fuck?
Who sets out in the morning on a mission to go kill little kids .. armed to the teeth .. seeking as prey » kindergarteners and first-graders?
"And where does one do such a thing," you ask? No, not in the Serengeti, but rather right there in the classroom .. while they're all gathered together in one place .. huddled is the word I want ..
.. maybe while their teacher teaches them their ABC's .. See spot run. Run spot run .. or maybe how to add 1 + 1. [ The elementary school there in Sandy Hook is K-thru-4. ]
All of the students, it now seems, that were slaughtered yesterday in Sandy Hook .. were age 6 or 7.
"Whoa!" I can't quite wrap my head around that. What the fuck? (« not gratuitous, not hardly, not here).
<begin_twilight_zone_side_bar>
The Bug is 7. Maybe that is why I thot of the kids first. Cuz it's hard to ignore the similarity.
The size similarity. The adorable-ness similarity. The honesty similarity. The give-meaning-to-your-life similarity. The innocence similarity. The vulnerable similarity.
Or perhaps .. taking an empathetic step into the shoes-of-the-parent(s) .. is a place .. that remains just a place.
Seems like such a dark place. No? [ Death is a dark place. And THIS 'death' .. wow! The most horrific, unsettling, soul-disturbing thing ever. ]
In other words .. I can tell that I'm rocked. Just so you know .. that we might be entering the Twilight Zone. Fair warning.
Yep, thar she be .. dead ahead.
The Twilight Zone (.. if you've never been) .. is a place where anything goes. Shit does NOT have to make sense there.
And truth be told, you probably don't even want it to (.. for reasons we will address shortly).
But I guess it shouldnt seem strange that such a horrible thing would threaten and unsettle (rock-to-the-core) a parent ..
.. any parent .. seeing that protecting their kids is Job #1 (.. via a species-level programming, that is genetically hard-wired deep into our most fundamental circuitry).
Maybe this is why I feel this thing so deeply .. way down at that level where it feels like the species itself is threatened.
Can't believe I just said that .. but that's the way it feels.
Because if human beings can do *that* .. then they can do ANY thing. No? Before yesterday, I didnt know that such a thing was even possible.
Not only did I not know .. that somebody could HAVE such a thought .. I didnt even know that such a thought was possible.
Or perhaps I'm just naive.
You have likely heard the saying about how you can only see the stars when it's dark out .. and I have found that to be true in my own life .. to a degree.
[ In other words » sometimes you have to GO PLACES .. to see things. Think about it. ]
But I wonder if that same [ beauty-in-darkness ] paradigm applies to the parents who have lost children .. there in Newtown ..
.. under such incomprehensibly cruel circumstances. I certainly hope so. (I can only imagine what kind of dreams they are having.)
There is something curious about parenting .. that when our kids are happy, laughing, playful .. our lives seem inexplicably content ..
.. regardless whatever obstacles life may toss our way. As tho nothing else matters. But there is a flip-side to that parenting coin .. and it is not pretty. Not at all.
I have tried .. to put myself into the shoes of the parents who lost children there in Newtown .. and I feel » nothing. Nada.
This makes me think that I am NOT ABLE to go there. Like it's too much. I guess we all have our limits.
Dostoevsky lost his young son in 1878 (.. to epilepsy, a condition he inherited from his famous father) .. right before Fyodor started to write his famous story about Dmitry, Ivan & Alexei .. aka » the brothers Karamazov.
The father in the story is named » Fyodor .. Dostoevsky's name. In other words, he's playing the part/role of the father ..
.. or at least assuming that part as one of his roles. Either way, he has to enter-into that role/mindset. A place he no doubt had been giving serious consideration to of late ..
.. not unlike 20 fathers in Newtown tonight. At least 20. And many more around the country.
And if you know about Dostoevsky, then you know that he goes deep. And he goes deep quickly.
And he sees in the dark. And he sees very well in the dark.
And the father will be talking to his sons. And his sons will be talking to their father .. and to each other .. ABOUT their father.
The brothers will do a lot of talking. And sometimes it will be pretty. But mostly not. =/
It's a funny thing .. how often Dostoevsky seems to turn up in the Twilight Zone. How *does* he do that?
And if Dostoevsky is here, then Kafka can't be far. [ « An example of a Rad logic ladder .. for negotiating my way thru the darkness.
Here is the opening sentence from the novel. See if you notice any other similarities with Newtown.
"Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov well known in his own day (and still remember among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place."
It's no big secret that the plan-of-salvation itself is very much a father/son thing. So the weighty gravity of the brothers is never far. You can feel it .. instinctively. The generations speak .. and not always nicely. =)
Have you ever heard the Cat Stevens song » Father & Son? [ Lyrics. ] What makes this song so cool .. is that Cat sings BOTH parts .. both the father's part and the son's part (.. just like Dostoevsky does).
Oh, score! Here's a 2007 version .. so you can actually compare and contrast the song sung when he was young .. and then when he was old. First when he was a son .. and later when he was a father. And a grandfather. The same song. Very cool.
I feel like Turgenev [ tur-GEN-yev ] is going to come walking thru the door at any moment. =) Another nineteenth century Russian.
The Russians certainly arent afraid .. to get off the porch.
Critics say the loss-of-his-son had a "profound effect" on Dostoevsky's writing, and therefore on the novel.
Fuel to burn. Lots of it. Gotta burn up the grief/angst/suffering/despair somehow or other. Or it will eat you alive.
Running is my default grief-burner. Run until the hurt stops .. until I no longer feel the psychic throbbing. Might be a while, tho. You get in shape, quickly and easily. The pounds fall off. No appetite. (Booze only makes the pain worse. It's a toxin.)
I want to do something for them .. for those families in Newtown .. perhaps send them a card. If I just write "Sandy Hook Elementary School Memorial. Newtown, CT" on the card .. I'm sure it will get there. 06482
[ Dad would sometimes let me stay up late if I would watch the Twilight Zone with him. I have jokingly told friends .. that THAT is the reason why I am the way I am. "Not my fault, mon." =)
<end_twilight_zone_side_bar>
The shooter's mom [ who he shot in the face ] substitute-taught kindergarten there. [ Update - maybe she didnt work there .. but uh, she DID get shot in the face (4 times). ]
We try to understand the mind set that can lead to tragedies such as this, so we can better recognize the telltale signs .. so we have a better shot at thwarting such nation-rattling horror in the future ..
.. and as a way to say, 'sorry' to those kids .. for letting such a horrible thing happen to them. "We'll fix it. In your honor. Promise. Honest injun."
But I can't get there .. how someone could even *think* of such a thing.
I mean, if I found myself in a place where they told me, "You have to shoot this little kid, or we shoot you."
I don't see how I could do it. [ Who wants to live in a world like that, anyway? ] "Shoot me now, dude."
Even if they told me, "We'll shoot you, THEN the kid."
I'd tell the kid, "We're going to a better place. I'll be waiting for you there."
How could a person, who did something like that, ever live with them self? That would be a good trick, no? (Tho it seems that 'living' is never the goal.)
What kind of torment can drive a person to even CONSIDER doing something like that? Why not just kill yourself? (Like Hemingway did.) Or confine your killing to the person(s) who you feel caused that torment?
Why a whole classroom full of first graders? There is obviously something that I'm not getting here. Nana says I never will get it. Speaking of Nana...
Today's entry continues & concludes in Ye Olde Rad Blog v4 .. see here » Shooting First Graders? What the Fuck?
So I figured I should probably post it now. But what does 
And