Reality check.

Brace yourself folks, I have quite a bit to get off my chest in this entry!

I would assume it comes as no surprise that the Virginia Tech thing has been on my mind. I think it's on alot of people's minds. Things like this make no sense to me. But then again, I have a fundamental respect for life. All life mind you, I can't even kill a spider, I catch them and put them outside.

My first response was total shock. Universities are supposed to be places of knowledge and diversity. I know that my college years were filled with interesting people from interesting places all with different ideas and beliefs. It was a place to open my mind to contrasting views and philosophies on everything from science to basic daily life. Tea vs. coffee, Christianity vs. Islam vs. Buddhism vs. Atheism, rock vs. pop, nature vs. nurture, evolution vs. intelligent design, meat-eating vs. vegetarianism, Disney vs. Warner Bros. and the list goes on and on. It was my college years that helped determine the "ME" more than any other time in my life. And to think of all those young people, on the road to discovering who they were, expanding their minds, exploring their potentials, having that all taken away. I can understand a person being so unhappy that they want to take their own life. I think as humans we have the right to do ourselves in if we don't want to be here anymore. But why? Why did this man feel he had the right to take the lives of 32 people with him? What in his mind justified him taking away the hopes and dreams of 32 families? Misery loves company? What a crock!

Bottom line here, the world is going crazy. I think we are on the verge of some massive human meltdown! I know that even in my own little universe I can see things winding down that path. An air of sheer entitlement, like the world owes us something. It is all about number one and have no mercy for anyone that gets in the way. I do understand that we have to look out for ourselves and our families first, but along the way, we should be looking out for our neighbors and other living beings. The complete lack of compassion and civility that I see in my everyday life makes me sick! A busload of perfectly healthy people that won't get off their lazy asses to make room for an elderly man with a cane or a pregnant woman with swollen ankles. The jerk-off in the giganto, gas-guzzling SUV that rides up on your ass only to swerve around you at the last minute so he can punch it to get ahead of you so he can cut you off and damn near run you and your children off the road so he can make it to his destination 35.3 seconds faster than if he had just driven at the posted rate of speed! The hunter that kills one of the 6 remaining female Amur leopards in the wild. The crazy people fighting over the "in" toy at the department store at Christmas time. I'm sorry, but does your kid NEED that toy so bad you have to come to blows to get it? There is such a thing as disappointment, we all have to learn about it and SOMETIMES in life you don't get what you want. In fact, I think Mr. Jagger and the Stones put it quite eloquently..."You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might find...you get what you NEED!" In all honesty, this is where alot of this bullshit behavior stems. If your child gets every single thing he or she desires, how do they learn to cope with disappointment? How do they learn to work hard for something they want? I understand the desire as a parent to give your children everything. I'm even guilty of a certain amount of indulgence, but I am also pretty adept at saying "no", and I think that's important.

I'm at a loss to figure out how things got so bad. Are we so numb to violence that NOTHING surprises us anymore? I wasn't alive when the UT clock tower shootings happened, but I'm pretty sure it scared the hell out of the entire country! But as far as I can tell, the Virginia Tech shootings have now been overshadowed by Alec Baldwin yelling at his kid on a voicemail message. I guess it's a lucky thing Anna Nicole's crap has been pretty much dealt with or we wouldn't have even heard about this tragedy! Have we just become so passive from being force-fed by the media that we can hardly think for ourselves anymore? Are we so used to watching governments all over the globe acting like spoiled, rotten little children that have no respect for anyone or anything and no grasp of consequences? Or have we lost sight of the difference between doing what we want versus doing what is right? That's a biggy folks! Just because it makes you mad cash, doesn't make it right! Sometimes we have to set aside our monetary gains in order to do right by other people and the planet. Is that concept really that hard to grasp?? Call me an idealist, but I'd give up all the luxuries if it meant that every person in the world could eat decent food, drink clean water and have affordable medical care. Granted, I'm not about the "handout", but we can get into the state of welfare in another entry!

All I know is I don't like what I see. Polite society is nowhere near polite these days. Rude, self-centered behavior is the norm and it's sad. A very angry, rude, self-centered young man destroyed 32 families because he felt the need to take innocent lives with his own. And here I am, living day by day, wondering how to raise my children to be decent humans when the world is teeming with rude, self-centered, entitled assholes.