I am affected by this news of the lonely programmer/blogger, Sodini, going of on a shooting/suicide rampage at his health club. I read his blog. I feel dirty, like there is some sort of guilt by association for which I must atone; I am a programmer, I keep a blog, I go to the gym a lot, and I am unhappily single right now. It does seem sometimes that "the system" of sexual courtship is a little rigged against me, but aside from a little shame on these matters I never really considered myself to be dangerously out on the social fringes. Reading about this tortured soul made me feel as though I was in worse trouble than I realized. But I'm realizing that's exactly what Sodini wanted: to hurt a LOT of people, not just the women he shot at his gym but everybody who learned of him.

I'm essentially a gentle soul. Yes, a murder rampage at my gym is unthinkable. But to some extent I share Sodini's thirst for blunt and negative self-assessment. Society offers a lot of insincere, treacherous, and expensive answers to pain. Sodini was way off the mark on a lot of things, but he found a genuine voice in his blog. It is nice to have the Internet and the freedom to say to the world "I have been trying and yet things STILL suck." He was on to something but overwhelmed by demons that have nothing to do with blogging, writing, and self expression.

I don't come across a lot of blogs like Sodini's. To a fault, everyone must gloss over and sugar coat their own pain. That is facebook, in my opinion, and that's why I feel that ultimately it's a pretty boring place. I see a lot of people timidly hinting at the fact that they're in pain. "I shouldn't be online right now." What does that MEAN exactly? At least they're trying, I usually have to feel pretty good to post anything for fear of sounding depressed.

Ultimately I think the Internet is a terrible place to take any sort of courageous stand. However, it's something. If only Sodini had the creativity to make art out of his pain, to build some sort of monstrous, defamatory art out of his ideas instead of pressure cooking himself with negativity up until the point he had to start shooting. Ultimately, I think his failure was in not going far enough with his ideas. He imposed a rigid standard upon his own voice, making it impossible for his words to take him anywhere but down. People will look at this as an instance of angry blogs spelling trouble, and it will drive hurt people further back into the shadows, when in reality they should be stepping forward with their ideas, somehow, be it in a blog or some other means.