Vandalized Heart

Last week at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho took a 2-hour breather from murdering 32 people to mail a video of himself to NBC. This video was full of accusatory statements such as “You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today” and “You have vandalized my heart.” To me, the words of this loner speak to the greatest human tragedy of all.\nI’m not defending Cho. All people are responsible for their own actions and his were inexcusable. But instead of harboring unproductive anger toward him, maybe it’s time for us to reexamine a society that could contribute to someone’s drive to do something so terrible in the first place.\nAs when he was alive, our first reaction is to separate ourselves from someone like Cho. We say he was unbalanced. But who among us isn’t? Maybe the only real difference is that most of us are lucky enough to have friends whose kindness and humor balance out the dark corners of our own minds. Most of us have social skills and people in our lives who we look forward to seeing throughout the week. If we’re okay, it’s only because we have located pockets of human warmth in an otherwise uncaring world.\nThe need to belong is the strongest drive there is. Think of the insane amount of energy we invest into weaving ourselves into any frivolous endeavor that will make us feel more connected: Facebook, greek life, meaningless hookups. We’re obsessed with avoiding loneliness, and yet we never fail to be shocked at the desperate extremes people go to when they feel they’ve been left behind.\nHundreds of Facebook groups have been created by people cursing Cho’s name and detailing all the ways they will degrade him if they ever meet him in hell. That kind of contempt won’t reverse what happened – it only exemplifies the blind hatred that inspired Cho’s act in the first place. Other groups have been created by Koreans and other Asians insisting that Cho is not a representative of their ethnic group. How petty and typical it is of us to be concerned with our own appearances even in the face of monumental tragedy.\nWhen did we become so jaded that we won’t talk to someone who dresses funny, or is overweight, or is in any other way “the weird kid?” Some of the most interesting people I’ve been lucky enough to know have been “the weird kid.”\nCho was known by his peers only as the the human “question mark.” Aren’t we all question marks? Don’t we all look to others to define us, to validate us and to make us feel like we’re okay? \nWe need to stop being shocked by the events of last week and start being accountable for one another. Only by stepping outside of ourselves and tuning into the needs of others can we begin to prevent the “vandalized heart.”\nLet’s put aside anger and allow this tragedy to serve as a much-needed reminder of the most basic human truth: Nobody makes it out here alone.