Virgina Tech: Death, Dying, and the whole damn thing (is my generation lost?)

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,”

As I watched the day’s events unfold I was in awe. The stark and brutal images flickering across my television screen; I could only shake my head and sigh. Where has my generation gone wrong? Everyone remembers Columbine. I remember the after effects even more clearly. Having “attack drills”where, as a class, we would huddle in the corner with the door locked and lights off. As police ran up and down the halls and a pretend killer fired blanks and banged on doors.If you were unlucky enough to be in the halls when this occurred you might hear a loud pop then a voice saying “you’re dead”.

There were also bomb drills, in which, the entire student body would make a mad dash to the football field. We did either, if not both of these drills, twice a month. It got to the point where I was numb to the concept of being shot in my own school.

Now, Virgina Tech. Many questions will be asked, your basic where? when? why? and how? The where’s, when’s, and how’s, those are all easy to answer. But the why? no one will ever know. Why does anyone ever die? No one knows, part of the “fun” of living I guess.

The sooner you realize that everyone you know is going to die, the better. My generation, I want so much to believe there is hope for us. But, then something like this happens. And that paranoia comes right back.

I really fucking hate being paranoid, honestly. But, I’ve come up in a time that it’s hard not to be. I knew people who died in 9/11. I could see the skyline driving around my town. Columbine and now Virgina Tech. And most colleges I’ve seen and the one I attend, have such lame excuses for security I might as well wear a bulletproof vest walking to class.

My generation has seen more death and violence on our own turf before most of us can have a legal drink. Other generations had war’s in far off places. We have it in our own backyard, and we have to be weary of everyone. Hypothetically, anyone you know could shoot up your campus. And of course, the government says, terrorists can blow you up at any time. And speaking of government, we can’t even trust them. We may grow up and have no social security.

I think I am a literate and well read person, but all I can say is, FUCK! FUCK THE GUN TOTING CRAZIES! FUCK THE TERRORISTS! FUCK THE GOVERNMENT! and most of all FUCK PARANOIA!!!

But, then again, maybe there is hope. Maybe our darkest hour is our youth and we will build a resolve and will that can never be broken. Maybe nothing can scare us now because we’ve been through it all. You know, I really hope so.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ~Dylan Thomas.