Dreaming on the Beach

The ocean waves roll in
One after another, in a never ending current
One after another, all through the night
The crashing of a hundred million drops, like static, as though a trance,
As though a ritual.

Ocean waters are deep, and full of mysteries
Cold, Unknown.
Like the feet of dirt above a mass grave
Concealing forgotten souls
Resting motionless

And above, the other
Great dark ocean
Extending beyond human imagination
Beyond the capacity to understand
 I know this is all in mind,
Yet whose mind could hold?

Everything is quiet except for the gently rolling waves
The smell of the beach, and the gentle warm breeze..

Here, I am lost, undiscovered and alone.
No one will ever know.
Yet the gentle warm breeze,
Reminds me I'm not alone.

Lying in sand molded to hold
Watching the galaxies above.

Grand, spiraling, swirling and growing.
Nebulas, blooming, becoming..
Witnessing ages pass before my eyes
Eons... and eons... my heart slows..

Eyes growing so heavy.. I can...
barely...

hold.........

"Asleep on the Beach"

And then,
Nothing.




The cosmic dream unfurls before the soul

no direction
no duration
observed with heart alone

Dream of earth, long gone...
The presence of another resides here, now.
Channeling her song...




I can hear... feel?.. the faint melody, within.

'within..'
..Such a strange concept, within.
Everywhere and nowhere, her song holds me.
Quiet moments of inspiration,
Sense of a spirit,
Her mind touches mine.



I have never really been alone

The only human contact that can ever really contact another soul
Is the expression of an inspiration
A shared meaning
Something you both feel
and know

Something known, like coming home


I have cried through childhood years
clutching an innocence I can't let go
Yet innocence resides someplace, stored up,
in the corner of a shed,
Forgotten since 1950,
In an eternal field, where green grass abounds,
Waiting to be re-found.

"Forgotten Summer"

I don't want to remember any of this,
When I'm gone.

Life was a distant dream
With faint echos of the love I lost when I was born
Into a wretched screaming mold of blood-covered flesh.

Yet this love, I've recalled...
On days of school, daydreaming, blue sky, clouds,
Rainy days, home, distant air raid sounds,
Autumn leaves, forest, hoodies, cold.....

I have never really been alone.

"Detroit VIII"

These memories I have
from the other place,
like the warm wind that rustles,
to remind me of the sands,
in which I still lie.

Neural Network Government

A while back I was discussing governments with my friend through email. I had just watched a 5 hour documentary on China, covering from the time before Mao Zedong straight through communist China and on to the 90's, as well as having done research on my own, reading about medieval China.

The thing that becomes undeniable about China through all of this study is it's very turbulent history. In a nutshell, China is nothing more than one bloody revolution after another. One state of people rising up to fight the powers that be, and then either losing or gaining power, and creating a new society, which, in turn, people are miserable in, and once again rise up against. It is almost comical, really.

I don't like discussing government or politics very much, or very often, because generally such talk is very meaningless and fruitless and one becomes a pawn to political ideology


But, given the cycle of governments and people's vain attempts to impose some kind of prosperity or order or control onto people through them, and the different kinds of governments that have been tried, always to some degree of failure and problems, I was inclined to consider for a bit the nature of this phenomenon, what governments are really all about, how human nature works with them, and to contemplate what kind of governments might still be left untried... this just being a blog posting for the sake of entertaining an idea I found interesting.

"Detroit V"

I started to think, well, what if in the future we can have AI or computer-aided governments? I thought about the possibility of a supercomputer that works in a democratic framework and counts all votes and makes laws itself. I quickly dismissed this idea as it didn't really make any sense, however.

Then I started to think about neural networks. There is this video I saw of "Super Mario Brothers" being run on a neural network. (in other words, played by a computer.) The neural network was given the simple objective to get Mario to move to the right as quickly and as far as possible. This is an easy and simple objective since all Mario levels are set up that way - move left to right. The network would start by entering utterly random controls into the controller. It would do this thousands of different games, and less "healthy" (health being defined by how far right Mario gets) input structures would be eliminated, whereas the healthier ones would "reproduce", so to speak. It would continually do this until it develops a program of it's own that can play Mario. By the end of it's evolution, it would become so good at playing Mario that you would think you're watching some crazy pro playing the game.

Ok, so I thought maybe you could create a massive supercomputer that somehow basically operates the governance of a country this way.

But the obvious problem I encountered is that a computer has no value structure. a computer feels nothing about people dying, or starving, or being poor, or lonely, or mistreated, misrepresented, not being free enough, safe enough, etc, etc. And so how exactly do you define the "health" rules for a country of people with potentially so many definitions of their own of what happiness is? With Mario it's easy, just move to the right, but even with Mario there were some hangups in later games, such as traps you have to spring in order to continue, or levels that require you to move backwards to advance. So running a society? Seemed out of the question, far too complicated.

So once again I sort of dismissed the idea.

But then I had this epiphany: As part of this neural network-run government, people would be required (or perhaps simply encouraged) to fill out a kind of survey, maybe once a year or once a month or so.
This survey, as best I could figure it, would only ask them one question:
"How happy are you?"
and it would be a multiple choice, ranging from "extremely happy" "happy" "somewhat happy" "neutral" etc. all the way down to "extremely depressed" (or something like that)
You might think that you would want it to ask more questions like "what do you want changed" etc. but it would actually be important not to ask such questions, because, first of all, that would potentially make it little different than democracy as it is, and second of all because we may not know exactly what it is we really want, what's really happy and best for us, that would be for the computer to figure out. (some might ask the computer for various laws/scenarios, and once granted, they would only temporarily be happy, and then realize they're still unhappy, or, they might desire things that only serve to make other people unhappy.)

This survey, of how happy people are would serve as the sole criteria for the "health" of the neural network, just as moving to the right is the health of the Mario network.

"Detroit I"

This computer, in addition, would have access to all the information about everyone's lives, (yeah, I know people would be very resistant to such a thing, but it would be necessary) such as their age, gender, race, weight, occupation, education, income, how often they work, whether they are married, single, alone, introvert, extrovert, their interests, where they live, how many friends they have, what food they eat, their hobbies, how often they sleep, any diseases they have, etc, etc... everything. (anything could potentially play a role in their happiness) I'm not sure how it would get such a huge amount of information, but, well, at the most primitive scale at least you could have an extremely comprehensive questionnaire everyone fills out about themselves, but preferably the computer would somehow just observe everyone and take notes of its own))

The computer would play through scenarios and slowly evolve it's network to get this "happiness" survey score to be as high as possible, by coming up with all sorts of laws and the associated punishments/rewards of it's own, and continually modifying them to get a higher score. The computer would start off randomly and chaotically legislating laws, and then evolve into a more refined law structure, just as the Mario network does. Obviously, this computer would have no ulterior motives of it's own, so long as it remains an uncompromised program. It would be purely based on the score it's getting based on people's completely subjective opinion of how happy they themselves are.

Furthermore, this computer program would not simply be hellbent on achieving merely the highest score possible overall, but would also be scored based on how even the score is. This would be to prevent a scenario where you have 90% of people who are extremely happy and 10% who are extremely depressed. In the case of individuals who are just of too rare a nature to really fit in with others and be happy, the computer would not abandon them, but rather be specifically scored/programmed to give increased emphasis on the most absolutely "depressed" percentage of individuals, even if it is at the cost of a much larger group of "happy" individuals. The computer would be given a higher score based on catering to these individuals, rather than being so overly concerned with getting a bunch of "happy" individuals to change their score to "extremely happy" - unless in the situations where just about everyone is near that level.

"American Emptiness / American Depravity"

I've been thinking this out, and in theory, it seems about as good as things could get, and the only potential problems or drawbacks I can think of are these two:

either A: people are not properly introspective enough to give an accurate assessment of themselves, how happy they are, and so many will mark happy when they are not, or others will mark "depressed" just out of ego, or to revolt, or something.

or B: people will be uncooperative. They will, for example, see that the computer is asking them to do something that goes against their collective greed, or their preconceptions about things, such as gender roles, race, how education should be structured, the importance of science, or religion, etc. and will rise up in one big "oh hell no" and decide to override the program or discontinue it, or perhaps even simply just botch their survey answer, until they selfishly get what they want.

"Detroit XIV"

So, this sets the general framework in which a supercomputer could realistically operate a government. This government, at the outset, could not be called democratic, nor socialist, nor fascist, nor anything that we know now. Given the nature of the fact that it is strictly determined through a neural network, with the health parameters based on a simple "happiness survey", it would indeed be a new type of government. I say "at the outset" because the program could end up evolving a structure that may indeed appear very similar to any of these types of governments, but it just as well might come up with something quite bizarre, and in any case the fundamental framework would not be based on any of these structures.

Among some issues I thought up while considering all of this, one problem was the question of how exactly the computer would legislate laws at first, when it's in its most chaotic, randomized state. I mean, theoretically, it could legislate laws at first saying things like "you have to hop on one foot all the way to a certain location" or else you'd be fined and imprisoned for life, or anything equally bizarre and harsh.
The first thoughts I had on this was that perhaps the program could be started off with very very light penalties on crimes, that people can basically ignore, until it slowly ramps up into a more serious structure.
But then I thought, a more sensible answer would be to have people, alongside their survey, come up with a list of possible legislation suggestions. This input would only be given initially, and would simply give the program a general starting point for setting up laws that are actually relevant to humans, and not simply random jargon that makes no sense.

There is also the possibility of perhaps combining the neural network structure with a kind of democratic structure. It would be important to try not to compromise the neural network with fallible human input, however. The reason I suggest this idea at all is simply in response to the potential extreme, ridiculous, or harsh laws the computer might occasionally randomly come up with.
You could, for example, let the computer do its thing, making it's own decisions without input, but require that every legislation to be passed through a vote by humans before it becomes law. This vote could perhaps require very high percentage in order to downturn a law, in order to prevent humans from making stupid human decisions based on what people commonly want, or based on one particular political ideology common to people, preventing the computer from being able to impose the structure that it needs to. You could require that 85% of people vote "no" on the passage of a law in order for it to be downturned, for example. The purpose of this would simply be to weed out the most ridiculous, random, or dangerous, extreme and harsh laws that virtually no one would be ok with, maintaining some level of safety without totally compromising the AI's decision-making.

Another issue, my friend brought up in our email discussions, was based on what I said about the system being uncompromised. (in terms of security, so that it remains without ulterior motives) This was something that I had also given consideration to. A thought I had in response to this was that the structure of this government could be set up something like the way bitcoin is. You would have server farms, spread out and interconnected, and people would earn the rights to hosting them based on the computer processing power they have available. The system would be cross-verifying and would reinforce itself this way against security threats, just as Bitcoin does. People are very obsessive and defensive over security issues regarding their money, which is the reason such a structure developed for digital currency, and so it's an easy idea to target to protect a digital government, too.

X, Y, Z

I had these ideas in my head just now and I was trying to sort them out, so I felt the need to write them down to better organize my understanding with myself..

__________

If you zoom in far enough on space or matter, you would expect there to be a fundamental level, particle, or building block. Zoom in far enough and there has to be a building block which cannot be broken down into any smaller pieces. Otherwise it's just be an infinite division of threads making the whole and you could never find the smallest piece. Maybe the smallest level is energy which forms particles, or something like that, but for my thought experiment this is irrelevant. This energy is still bound to time and space.

So, presuming that there is a most fundamental level, you have these tiny 'bits' that make up physical reality. These bits, you have one over "here" and another over "there", and with however many quadrillions placed next to and on top of one another in this formation, you eventually can form an atom, and with enough atoms you can form molecules, and with enough molecules you can form a drop of water, and with enough drops of water you can form an ocean.

But we have established that these 'bits' are the smallest possible building blocks. Therefore we would have to explain the space between them, or connecting them. And we would have to explain the time it takes for an object to traverse from one to the other. Any delay in travel from one to another adjacent to it would be a gradation between the two and thus represent an even yet smaller building block. And so the whole process would start over and we would be left with an infinite well of a microcosm which can never be fully probed. No smallest building block.

Therefore, on this level, one 'bit' next to another bit would have to be all there is. There is no space between them, to move from one to the next is to instantaneously jump or teleport to it, with no point of traverse in-between, nor with any time... simply instantly. It is the most fundamental level, it cannot be broken down any farther. If you continue to break down the space between bits into smaller gradations, you eventually have to concede that this break down is infinite, and therefore motion is not even possible. For a bit to move from one bit-space to another, it cannot be able to take the first step if we infinitely break down the distance between bits into smaller subdivisions, otherwise you're left with never being able to explain on what level something begins moving at all. Every time you say "Ok, here, on this tiniest scale, it moves from A to B" you are forced to concede that there is an even yet smaller gradation between that A and B, composed of smaller units, across which this object or bit is traversing. And you'd never be able to find that end. Therefore there is an eventual level which simply cannot be broken down any farther, and therefore this bit literally teleports instantly from one location to another, from A to B, otherwise motion becomes impossible.

Space no longer exists, nor does time, not as anything we understand anyways.

In addition, we have the difficulty of explaining what exactly this smallest 'bit' is made of. What is it composed of? What is it's material? But we can't say this! Because that necessitates an even smaller, more refined level. It has to be something entirely unified with itself. We can't even say that this bit, itself, takes up a certain amount of space, even. Any measurement of it's space breaks down space into smaller chunks, which we can theoretically measure out, and then proceed to cut this smallest bit in half, creating smaller pieces, which would prove this smallest bit is not in fact the smallest bit, but is instead composed of something smaller, which makes it up, thus allowing it to be cut in half. At the same time, this suggests that this smallest bit is in fact infinitely small. But how is that possible? You could never zoom in far enough to see it. In other words it exists outside of the spatial construct completely. It is non-spatial, it is just a conceptual point. A vector. A psychological entity.

Actually, how can I even properly say these bits are "next to" each other? My thoughts are breaking down a little here, but the questions that come to mind are things like "what are they next to each other in?" "how can they exist in any framework which might arrange them if they are the smallest building blocks?" "how can you separate these two tiny 'bit' points in space if there is no longer any scale of space between them?" or time, for that matter.

The point here is that I can't. They're not spatially or temporally separate. All these bits exist in the same singularity. The inevitable implication of what this means is - yes - the entire universe exists in this one singularity. This one single point: you, me and everything we know, without space and without time.

"— (3:14. everything that god made, that will be forever.)"

So..
then I think about the big bang. This idea of everything exploding out of a single nothing. Out of a singularity.

Did it really explode? Or did it just appear to explode, to us? And doesn't this idea of a singular existence make a whole lot of sense of a lot of things? Like mind/consciousness, or quantum concepts, for example. Like we are experiencing something that could be compared to a computer program, which has projected for itself an artificial 3D environment, which does not actually exist in reality, and is really nothing more than information on a CPU?

That gets ahead of myself. Back to the big bang. What separates one piece of matter from another, in this ideology I've constructed, is not space and time, not truly, but rather a cognitive distinction between one thing and another. I look to my right and I say "That space is over there" and I look to my left and I say "While that space is over there." But they're not. They're both right on top of each other and in the mind alone.

I have taken a singularity and I have imagined it to be multiplied. With more than one, numbers now become relevant, (they did not exist before such a point) and I can count... 1.. 2.. 3..  From counting I can form a theoretical grid, an idea of one dimension.. x.. and another... y... in which this multiplied singularity can be arranged. 1, 2, 3, this way, and that. Add another dimension... z... and I have an entire 3D construct.. space. Add another, why not? We can have 4 dimensions, 5, 6. As many as we want. Maybe I decide one spatial construct is divided from another spatial construct, yet connected, and they all flow into each other with subtle changes. And this we call "time." We've already established that time is impossible, but through perception we can create it here. It's all just distinctions in information in a singularity.

So did this universe or big bang really explode? Or was it a perception which "exploded"? While everything actually remained in one singularity?

I mean, what is with consciousness? It makes up our entire existence, and nothing is outside of it, for us. And yet it somehow seems strangely attached to this matter. But what is it? This idea seems to suggest that this consciousness is a property of reality. A property of the singularity. It's indistinguishable from the entirety of the universe, or multiverse, or whatever it is. Without it, space and time cannot be made possible. (or rather into possible experiences)

Maybe said another way; reality is virtual, and the mind or consciousness which is spawning it is the whole entire fundamental basis of it. It is it.

So, what happens with things like quantum entanglement is that these two particles which appear separated in space, yet strangely connected, they are actually both merely contained within the framework of this mind or supercomputer type of state, and the information can be directly and instantly written to both, because they both exist as nothing more than information, as distinctions between a singularity and itself. A virtual framework of space. And all information boils down to nothing more than one thing and another, 0 and 1, black and white, binary. This information even including time and space. All equally being the same. Just an informational construct.



I am trying to take this farther.. Ask more questions.

How is it that, if space and time are in actuality completely impossible and don't even make any sense, how is it that I perceive and experience them as if they are very coherent and sensible? I look around my room, and I make a distinction in my mind between one direction and another. It all seems a very real and tangible phenomenon.. the distinction between the two, I mean. But I guess it's just information. I mean one dimension splits up into a gradation going out in one plane, creating an idea of separate spaces, other dimensions are added to this (y, z) to create different directions, and the difference between one direction and another is, simply, nothing more than another distinction, another piece of information, another way of dividing things up. And at a certain point of analyzing the difference between one dimension and another, things seem to cease making sense to me. Like what is one dimension on it's own, exactly? And how do you add one to another? Where is it being added? And at this point it begins to break down so much that I start to ask myself, "What am I even talking about?" Maybe it's all just meaningless distinctions within a mind, afterall. Just numbers and counting. It's like when I wake up in the morning, and reality doesn't even make any sense. Like.. in my own right, I exist in a different reality, not simply a different universe or dimension, but a whole different mentality, self contained and sensible within itself, and the nature or senselessness of this one does not make sense (rightfully so) until I readjust myself to it. (fully wake up.)

As I look about my room, making a distinction between one direction and another, I notice how the human construction of the room helps make things simpler for me. We humans like to make these artificial homes which are nothing more than extremely simplified boxes. Like x, y, and z dimensions. Isn't that a little strange? I mean we came out of the jungle, where everything is chaos and arbitrary and a mess, yet we are so attracted to building these super mathematical, geometrical, reduced, simplified forms. It reflects something of the attraction of the psychological, I think. Of pure concept. Something we aspire to, in our consciousness. This is sort of a tangent..



What about emotions? I wonder. I mean not just the petty superficial ones separating one need from another... hunger.. fear... excitement... suspense... boredom... petty sadness... petty joy... petty anger... But rather... the sense I have that there is something which is important. That there are certain things which do matter and are important. That we can't just act like it's all just meaningless distinctions, is what I guess I am trying to say? The way a person behaves, for example. It can become either meaningful or meaningless, depending on the specific way they act. Or is this not important? Is this another illusion? I don't even know how to approach this question..

What makes one thing feel so intensely wrong to me, and what gives another thing meaning? And how do I defend this? I can't really write the definition for this. I can make superficial distinctions and say "there, see, this one has one certain aspect of it which separates it from the other, that is why it's important." because such distinctions are superficial and thus meaningless... x, y, and z. 1, 2, and 3. black, grey, and white, one moment and the next and the next, etc. It's all the same. But it's not! One thing is meaningful and the other is not. So do you see, how can I define that? It feels, to me, anyways, feels, that there is something fundamental, something more fundamental then this surface of superficial distinctions, which is being expressed. And the way in which objects in the material, temporal world are used kind of... symbolize it.. express it, maybe.

Yes, you can still reduce meaning to a binary system. Love and unlove. Meaning and lack of meaning. Good and bad. Just 0 and 1. Yet my actual experience, which is somehow connected to my consciousness and yet seems to exist nowhere at all within this construct, (from no source, or place, or time) tells me otherwise. It tells me that there's something more there. I can make a million distinctions between a million petty things, and there is no sense of meaning required. Nor should there be. Just sterile distinctions. Yet nevertheless I still feel something, in the bowels of my being, in some sort of non-locality, something that can't be explained by mere simple distinction, and it is this something which I call "meaning."

To put another way; in a world of arbitrary distinctions/information, there should be no sense of anything. It should all be hollow and uniform. Why would there be any sense there? Yet there is a sense of something, and I know this because I experience it.

And, furthermore, this "sense of something" speaks with it's own authority. It says - intrinsically within itself and directly to my consciousness without any space or time inbetween - that what it is is something which is.. purposeful. Useful to some greater part of my own being. Meaningful. Representing something on a grander scale than the petty and arbitrary reality which has been constructed here, and serves a purpose for this higher level, which furthermore I should be very happy about, because it is based upon something which this higher part of my own being as well wants or needs.

"Cathartic"

I don't know why my being wants this, it just does. I don't know what the point of it is. This "something", which seems so totally tied up to this sense of love I have. This sense of wanting to... have things be in their right place, to be done right. What drives that, exactly? What's the exact definition of that? This amorphous sense of.. wanting to care and be cared for, I guess? But how is that expressed exactly, through form? I mean, we're just arbitrary objects in a world of multiplicity, how can anything mean anything like that? How does form create that compassion? Why do I feel that compassion and caring in some forms, and not with others? Even as an arrangement of notes in a song, I can feel a sense of kindness and genuine warmth or a sense of unloving fear or aggression, and it's very distinct. Why, even when we take something.. like a hug for example.. I can feel different ways. One person may hug me and I might feel genuine compassion and understanding, etc. But another person may do it and all I feel is their ego and need for attention and greed and superficiality. And the difference between these two experiences which are so identical - both a hug - makes all the difference between a sense of meaning and a sense of the destruction of meaning.

What is it that this meaning is? What does it mean to love, I mean? What is that about? What is the higher purpose, not the shallow reasoning? It seems something about.. recognizing and giving homage to the importance of others. Yet I could then take that and ask, what is the purpose of that exactly? What is this 'importance' of conscious beings used for, in the grand scheme? Why is this importance important? What does it mean?

Trying to ask questions that get so incredibly fundamental and abstract becomes very confusing, making it hard for me to even look the question in the face directly. I don't think we are used to it. In order to calibrate my mind to this I have to develop a different way of thinking and perceiving, a different way for my thoughts to operate.

Dylan Klebold's "Existences"

Recently, I got into an email conversation with someone who wanted to speak with me based on my Columbine drawings. We exchanged a few somewhat lengthy emails discussing Columbine, Dylan and Eric. Eventually two questions were raised of me: how I interpret Dylan's journal, and about my art and its themes.

I thought about these questions for a while and didn't find them easy to answer, but I came up with an idea I rather liked, which would kill both birds with one stone, and give me a writing exercise where I could explore my own thoughts on Dylan much better.

I was originally going to just write all this in an email, but as I thought on it more I decided the idea deserved its own blog, and I have expanded it from there.

How does my idea kill two birds with one stone?
The central motivation I see in Dylan's journal is the same motivation that drives my art, for all I can tell. This philosophy revolves around love and everything related: romance, sex, mating, loneliness, ego, etc. and the many ways culture operates based on ego/power versus love, in the give and take of affection in general. (Things like "bullying" and social hierarchies can be seen as byproducts of the abuse of love and sex, for example.)

Part of what I like about this idea is that it makes it easier for me to talk about very personal, vulnerable, painful, and stigmatized/embarrassing things, given the fact that I'm basically just standing behind Dylan and reinterpreting him, rather than just merely putting myself on the spot alone.
All I really plan to do here is simply present various quotes from Dylan's journal, and then reinterpret each in my own words. I don't intend to talk about my art much at all, since my reinterpretations can more or less be taken at face value as my own philosophy, which most of my art is based on. I'm not merely retelling Dylan while distancing myself from him, I'm speaking from the basis of my own thoughts, as I recognized reflected in his own writings. Without knowing them first as my own, I probably wouldn't have recognized them at all.

I imagine that most people who flip through Dylan's journal won't see too much interconnected coherence, nor overwhelming meaning, but in writing all this I hope to explain why almost all of what Dylan says stems from one central thought, and dispel the common ideas you are likely to hear from any "mental health" quack or author who writes a shallow assessment of him. It's all related to the same idea, dissected and expressed in many different ways as an attempt of tackling it or proving something. My art could be described exactly the same way. I hope to explain so that anyone who reads this can see that Dylan's journal is not just a random collection, but the unified expression of ONE overwhelming thought/feeling/drive. I hope to explain so that, once you understand, you can look at most any of what Dylan said, and immediately identify what he's talking about in a way that's quite beautifully coherent and interconnected.

Interspersed will be drawings of mine particularly relevant to or inspired by Dylan.

Legend:

• All indented, italicized quotes as well as journal pictures are excerpts from Dylan Klebold's Journal, unless otherwise noted
• All quotes and journal pictures from Dylan are presented in chronological order, (according to investigators) starting from sometime around March 1997 right up until April 1999
• "[redacted]" or thick black marks (in the pictures) indicates where law enforcement has redacted information from Dylan's journal, for the sake of protecting individual's names, etc.
• All other photographs/videos (apart from Dylan's journal entries and my art) are relevant to 'Columbine,' etc, and not my own.
• This post was updated in 2020 with two new photos and minor text adjustments.

"A Revolution for the Lonely"

———

"People are so unaware..... well, Ignorance is bliss I guess.... that would explain my depression"

Starting from the very top, we have a statement that, like many others, appears very simple and trite at first, until you take into consideration the entire thought system of Dylan's journal. Dylan says many things right until the very end referencing his "awareness", mind, and "godliness". This idea ties in with his "existence box"drawings, discussed shortly, describing his own awareness. Dylan contrasts his mind with more superficial things, which I will reiterate to the point of being repetitive, to hammer home the point that what Dylan is discussing is an age-old spiritual philosophy of body vs. mind, surface vs. content, external vs. internal. We see this epitomized in people, even, by the classic jock vs. nerd dichotomy, as I will discuss later. Dylan is identifying himself as a mind-based person, while many other people are more surface-based, literally: superficial. These people are known to Dylan by various names: zombies, common, fags, humans, humanity, jocks, bitches, etc.

As for this quote, I think that Dylan is explaining why many people, although they may sometimes live a similar life, don't seem to be as upset as he is. He is defending himself: if they were more aware, they would see this major problem that he does, and take it seriously. He is defending that what he feels is valid, not some kind of mental defect... it is other people who are defective, for their ignorance. He can't understand how other people don't see this, it just seems apparent to him.

"This book cannot be opened by anyone except dylan, Some supernatural force blocks common people from entering"

I always felt that this quote is kind of a cute subtle way of reflecting how Dylan feels, and relates to this whole mental, self-aware vs. superficial philosophy of understanding. I suspect that Dylan expects few people to understand his journal, much as they don't understand him period, and is giving special privilege to those who are aware and pure enough. The common people - the zombies - don't understand, and apparently nothing can make them understand, so forget them - it's not worth the wasted effort. It makes me smile, because in a way, this cute little mystical, basically nerdy-sounding quote really is true.. those who do not understand cannot truly enter into Dylan's thoughts. They will read it with glazed eyes, and they will offer up your typical bullshit assessments we've all heard a million times... About how Dylan must be insecure, mentally ill, delusional, childish, wanting attention, etc. But those who do understand, enter and share a meaningful connection with him.

Here is Dylan's existence box. I immediately and always interpreted this as a way of illustrating a hierarchy in people's levels of awareness, with most people by human nature existing in the lowest tier, and Dylan existing at the top. Eric, too, references "self awareness" and godliness, "godlike" nature, but I believe the idea is original to Dylan, because of how well-developed the idea is with him, and how often and passionately he refers to it and explains it. Not just a vague thing he makes reference to without a complete thought structure to back it all up and reiterate it.

I think in particular, this drawing kind of illustrates for Dylan how, no matter where he goes, he can't seem to find anyone who seems to understand what he perceives in the world, even though it seems perfectly clear to him, himself.. it's a way of making clear how real this frustrating experience is. There truly is something important missing from the general population's consciousness, and he can't understand the fact, and why no one seems to perceive these deathly-important things that he does.

"I see jocks having fun, friends, women, LIVEZ
or rather shallow existences compared to mine"

Two things, first,
This is the first time in Dylan's writing where he breaks standard, even handwriting and starts exaggerating his letters. We see the word "Lives" embellished in several different ways. He is doing this because he is attempting to explain something very important to him, about the nature of "having a life", so to speak, but which is very hard if not impossible to really fully articulate in words, or maybe even clearly understand in one's own head. There's something very intangible, yet extremely powerful and meaningful, about the experience of "having a life" vs. being left out of the experience and watching it from the outside. I'm sure Dylan hopes that by simply overemphasizing the word "lives", he can get people to be like "oh, I see, this is a real problem, I understand.. " and empathize with him and begin caring. Of course the ugly reality is that people insist on ignoring and being oblivious to this, (again: unaware: this makes them "zombies") which just will not sit right with Dylan, ultimately resulting in massacre.

What makes people have "lives"? It's about the affection they collect. It's promiscuity, whether "romantically" or sexually, and even the use of mere friendships for power & ego purposes. Dylan even says "women" in this quote, making it specific, but I can demonstrate myself further through many other quotes.

Second,
Dylan mentions "jocks". We need to be very clear that this shouldn't be interpreted superficially and casually. Dylan isn't talking mindlessly about hating literal athletes or something. The word jock is invoked merely as a way of describing a type of superficial/body-based personality. It's just one of many titles used to describe a certain kind of person, which is not so easy to quickly express. This point is further reinforced by his subsequent line "rather shallow existences compared to mine". The jock vs. nerd dichotomy is a widespread and commonly understood portrayal of archetypes, and although everyone understands it from a superficial viewpoint, I don't think as many people are aware (awareness - there's that word again!) of what it means from a fundamental viewpoint... where it stems from psychologically and what it really means.
The dichotomy represents mind vs. body. Further, it represents hedonism and sex vs. spirituality and mental pursuits. The jock is classically interested in body, sex, status, power, the nerd is classically interested in mind-based things which puts them far from any sex or status, inclusion, etc. This is fundamentally exactly what it is that made these archetypes who they are, thereby creating the distinction in human minds.
Dylan makes these associations in this quote, too.

It's very important to note here that this is just a portrayal, dichotomy of archetypes: a literal jock is not by necessity a shallow person, a literal nerd is not by necessity exempt from being a whore. It is nothing more than a perceived appearance. A surface. And as any surface, is highly susceptible to manipulation, so people can go around as "wolves in sheepskin."
For example, I am not personally more inclined to become friends with someone who goes around presenting themselves as a "nerd", as it is very common for such a person to be doing so merely as a way of manipulating: to portray themselves as something other than what they really are. It is exactly through this dynamic that once-meaningful things like "nerd culture" become hollow and lose their meaning. Sold-out to the masses. (When I think of things like "comic book conventions", I feel a bit sick with the falseness of so much of it, it's not a place I feel I would really belong.)

At this point, I can imagine a reader laughing at just how much reading-into I'm doing do into a few simple quotes composed of a mere few words. But it should be understood that I'm basing all of this on the larger context of everything Dylan has said, which I find to be completely explaining and interlocking in a way that's undeniable, once all the evidence has been presented.

"Existence..... what a strange word. He, set out by determination & curiosity, knows no existence, knows nothing realevent to himself. The petty destinations of others & everything on this world, in this world, he knows the answers to. Yet they have no purpose to him. He seeks knowledge of the unthinkable, of the indefineable, of the unknown. He explores the everything...using his mind, the most powerful tool known to him. Not a physical barrier blocking the limits of exploration, time thru thought thru dimensions.... the everything is his realm. Yet, the more he thinks, hoping to find answers to his questions, the more come up. Amazingly, the petty things mean much to him at this time, how he wants to be normal, not this transceiver of the everything. Then, ocuring to him, the answer. How everything is connected yet seperate. By experiencing the petty others' actions, reactions, emotions, doings, and thoughts, he gets a mental picture of what, in his mind, is a cycle. Existence is a great hall, life is one of the rooms, death is passing thru the doors, & the ever-existant compulsion of everything is the curiosity to keep moving down the hall, thru the doors, exploring rooms, down this never-ending hall."

Dylan sets up a dichotomy here between the freedom of the mind and the limitations and imprisonment of the physical world. He is detailing another reason why the mind, the non-physical is important and worth valuing more. I like how he describes himself as a "transceiver of the everything." He values himself greatly for what he is, but at the same time laments the sacrifice this entails. He desires, on a more primitive level, to be a part of things - "normal" - but feels having a more spiritual nature naturally excludes him from being a part of the superficial, hedonistic games people are playing.

He also recognizes that these games are ultimately meaningless, petty, and cyclical. It's like watching a soap opera (which in fact mirrors what preoccupies common human consciousness) but being aware of the larger picture that this soap opera can never actually go anywhere. The dramas are never-ending and do not lead to anything truly meaningful, merely perpetuate forever. He sees other people as being more narrow minded and caught up in the game. He is contemplating this as an eternal problem, and wondering how he can break free. I think it's particularly interesting to note that he introspects/intuits within himself, here, basically not only a cycle to human behavior which is a fundamental component of existence, serving as some spiritual purpose/block, but even a belief in reincarnation, accompanying this cycle. He will allude back to this concept even in his final notes.

This repeated reference to his own concepts demonstrates that these are ideas which were well developed and repeatedly considered in Dylan's head, which he possibly did not recognize he wasn't explaining as well and familiarly as he knew them intimately within his own head. (They probably appeared more complete and coherent to him from the first-person perspective.)
When Dylan was younger, he was in a program for "high potential" students, where students were given more freedom and challenges to meet their abilities. From a former classmate, I read that they had held a chess tournament, and Dylan had won. I think a lot of structured, large-picture thought is necessary to win at chess, especially in such a "gifted" environment, and necessarily demands a pretty high IQ. By this standard, Dylan was capable of some pretty in-depth/complex thought, though I'm not sure whether he even cared how thoroughly he was explaining himself to others, and ultimately didn't care what people would think/understand of him.

(Dylan and his mother, Susan)

(Dylan)

 "Everyone knows everyone. I swear. like im an outkast, & everyone is conspiring against me"

Dylan is describing the feeling of dysphoria that comes with being isolated in the greater context of people who readily socialize and take it for granted, while overlooking him. There is a wrongfulness to this. They play, without making room for him... there is some way in which he cannot relate, and so finds himself excluded. He can't understand why it comes to them, and what it is about him that makes him different in this regard, and this hurts.

In trying to relate this to my own life, I think about the many times I would be on the school playground, watching everyone around me, playing and whatnot, while I would be standing by myself waiting for recess to end. I have tried to assess why I always seemed to be in such a situation, and it's hard to describe, really. There is something about people.. a certain harshness, competitiveness, which made me feel unwelcome. If ever I tried to join a group of kids playing ball, they would be hostile, aggressive... lacking a certain kind of awareness or sensitivity which really turned me off to them. When I would get thrown out of the game, and wait in line to play again, these other boys would pass me, seemingly disregarding me. If I really want to join in their games, it seems that I am required to become assertive and desensitized, and that's just not something that I am willing to be. There's no honest value in that, so I chose painful exclusion instead. Most people believe that this is something I should be blamed and criticized for, as if I need to change to fit in, or else accept fault, but I know that that is not right. That would be weakness. They are the ones who are shallow and need to change, I have never blamed myself.

"It is not good for me right now (like it ever is)... but anyway... My best friend ever: the friend who shared, experimented, laughed, took chances with, & appreciated me more than any friend ever did has been has been ordained.... "passed on".... in my book. Ever since [redacted] (who I wouldnt mind killing) has loved him... thats the only place hes been: with her... If anyone had any idea how sad I am... I mean we were the TEAM. When him & I first were friends, hell I finally found someone who was like me: who appreciated me & showed very common interests. Ever since 7th grade ive felt lonely... when [redacted] came around, I finally felt hapiness (sometimes)... we did cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses, EVERYTHING for the first time together. & now that he's"moved on" I feel so lonely, w/o a friend."

I could be wrong, since it's been so long since I initially studied this, but I'm pretty sure this is referring to Dylan's friends/acquaintances Zach and Devon. Zach was friends with Eric too, and Dylan had an unrequited romantic interest in Devon at one point. Incidentally, I watched an interview with Devon, and she comes off as an arrogant, cold-hearted, oblivious little tramp. Devon describes that Eric was angry at her as well as Dylan, for what she described as stealing their friend Zach away from them, which she seemed to have little concern over, laughingly describing herself as "Yoko Ono".

(Dylan and Devon, at (I believe) her birthday party)

Dylan is attempting to describe the pain and wrong he feels over Zach and Devon's affair. The fact that by Zach joining the mating game, Dylan feels he can't even tolerate and be any kind of real friends with him anymore, and this makes him feel further deprived. He describes him as "passed on", as if he's dead. Which is to say, he has lost his worth, his soul. When they were lonely friends together, there was an honest meaning to this kind of friendship, meaning which was important to Dylan. Dylan describes his experience with Zach almost in a romantically sentimental sort of way.. all these "first time" type of experiences, showing how much Dylan appreciates and values companionship.. it's not a game or allied empowerment to him, it's a meaningful and significant part of his life that he can't ever recreate.

Dylan doesn't want to "grow up" and play the "game", sell out, lose his innocence, devalue love, his hopes and dreams for it, and all that it means to him.. he wants people to stay with him and care. Now even his friend is going to start dating, and so Dylan is just supposed to sit on the sidelines and kick around and be alone and watch or something? As he gets older alone, while society goes on living and celebrating itself? Is he supposed to just smile and be happy and feel right about all of this? It's not ok, and it's not right, and Dylan is attempting to explain why in the face of a maddening society that largely accepts this as an absolutely normal and acceptable part of life, completely taken for granted.

"OH My God..... I am almost sure I am in love... w. [redacted]. Hehehe... such a strange name, like mine... Yet everything about her I love. From her good body to her almost perfect face, her charm, her wit, & cunning, her NOT Being popular, Her friends (who I know) -some - I just hope she likes me as much as I LOVE Her."

It should be stated that all of Dylan's mentions in his journal of being in love with people are all basically statements made towards people who are not "with" him, and are generally not aware of his interest in them at all.

Dylan makes special emphasis on this girl "NOT being popular." He is doing this because he strongly values the loneliness two people share, how much it means. It grants significance to another person, exactly the same way monogamy does, which serves as the whole basis of what gives love the value it has. Making someone feel special. You can sense that Dylan has antagonized the idea of being "popular".. the thought of being such a thing disgusts him. He's not "insecure", he just recognizes the value in devotion, for the love that it is, the most important thing that can possibly be shared and given to another person. Personally speaking, the thought that anyone, let alone society at large, can be so out of touch with itself as to not recognize this, and instead perceive "insecurity", ridicule, judge or hate it, fills me with disbelief and the most indignant sense of rage and disgust.

I also have always felt that Dylan's emphasis on "NOT popular" is meant to contradict culture.. We are taught, somewhere between our instincts and social dynamics, that we are supposed to value power and status more. To see people who are "getting action" as being more realized beings, and those who are deprived as being defective. To see whores as cool, strong, "confident", superior, and dateless virgins as stupid, uncool, weak, worthy of ridicule, and incapable. Dylan wants to make clear that he does not understand this, and values the lonely man above all else. The fact that he makes such special emphasis on "Not" reflects the fact that he is aware culture/instincts teach him to see the popular, included girls as being more desirable, which he bitterly does not.

It really irks me (understatement) the way so many sluts go around trying to portray themselves as victims, as if they are unfairly judged, misunderstood, constantly saying that "men" (always "men" since they have to manipulate their gender to portray themselves as victims) "see them as worth less for having sex", as if misogynistically objectifying them or something. Apart from this perception being frustratingly backwards, disrespectful, predatory, and unappreciative, It's completely untrue - the lonely are the ones who are constantly shamed and portrayed as worth less, everywhere in media and social dynamics.

Advertisements, for example, manipulate this psychology to no end - selling based on sex above all else, by preying on societies' repressed sense of significance about it. This selling based on sex could not operate successfully unless people really do have a strong underlying need to be included; this fact is proven by the high degree of success of such advertising - and no one seems to have any strong moral objection to these marketers being allowed to do this.

In truth, whores ARE worth less, and this is a fact which is not only OK to state and which people should stop being afraid of, but which needs to be pressed upon culture, to reclaim validation for those lonely souls who give their devotion and become abandoned, dehumanized, raped, and invalidated in effect from this power struggle.

You are only worth the love you give, not the affection you collect and discard.

"not fair, NOT FAIR!!!! I wanted happiness!! I never got it... let's sum up my life... the most miserable existence in the history of time.... My best friend has ditched me forever, lost in bettering himself, & having/enjoying/ taking for granted his love.... Ive NEVER knew this... not 100 times near this... they look at me like i'm a stranger;... I helped them both out thru life, & they left me in the abyss of suffering when i gave them the boost out. The one who I thought was my true love, [redacted], is not. Just a shell of what I want the most... "

(Dylan's handwriting breaks down in rage and despair)

There are several things to note about this,
For one, Dylan describes Zach as taking his love "for granted". This is a significant concept, because Dylan will refer to the idea multiple times. Dylan is referring to a devaluing of romance. The casualness of it. To Dylan, to possess a person is only something reserved for the final accomplishment of one's entire life, for which one offers and pays with their entire life. It represents love, in the highest sense, which is to say: completion, the most meaningful need of a soul, which itself seems to be the most important spiritual undertaking of all. It hurts him to watch others take love for granted, devalue it, exploit & objectify it, treat people as insignificant things to be collected easily. Dylan is saying that he would not have a problem with the romance if it was treated with the same level of respect, giving, and investment which he, himself, would put into it.

When he says "Ive NEVER knew this... not 100 times near this", I really feel this statement and know exactly what he is referring to... He is expressing that sense of where you are so innocent and inexperienced, and you value love - the affection that people share - so highly, that to even so much as talk to the opposite sex seems like a huge, scary deal, for which you would be profusely grateful. And as a result; how wrong, disturbing, and thus painful it feels to watch other people around you readily abuse that affection, by casually, easily consuming it, treating it like nothing, sating their egos with it, with no concern towards you and your deprivation nor recognition of your sense of significance about it. The presumptuous act of what they are doing dishonors the contrasting act of your valuing and sacrificing, dehumanizing you in the process.

Dylan goes on to describe how he feels he cared for them, and how he feels they are abandoning or not caring for him in return. He refers to this fact a few times later in his journal as well. He is describing the fact that he was considerate and not greedy with them, respectful, making sure others have love before taking any himself, and they don't seem to have any of the same regard for him. They just take and do what they want, while Dylan remains alone, and just the simple fact of this, in principle, feels very wrong and dehumanizing. It's the fact of how he feels he is being punished in return for caring and doing good and right, which makes it feel even all the more bitterly wrong than just merely being punished for any arbitrary non-reason alone.

Lastly, Dylan describes his disillusionment with his crush/es, as "shells." This is another word he uses multiple times. Many times, in fact. They are shells because at first they presented the appearance of potentially being love, but are in fact not his real love. Internal vs. external, and Dylan is not content with the mere appearance of love alone. I think, in addition, this also kind of subtly explains how and why all promiscuity, including even sham marriages and the like, are fundamentally a phony and superficial thing.

I always liked Dylan's phrase "Abyss of Suffering", because of how well I felt it describes the utter WRETCHEDNESS of the despair, jealousy and emptiness that I have felt at many lonely moments, of feeling abandoned and left behind, during my life.

"Kaynbred & Ismail Ax in the Abyss of Suffering"

 "I have ... no LOVE!!!" 

"I Have No One"

"Ignorance is bliss
happiness is ambition
desolation is knowledge
pain is acceptance
despair is anger
denial is helpless
martyrism is hope for others
advantages taken are causes of martyrism
revenge is sorrow
death is a reprieve
life is a punishment
others' achievements are tormentations
people are alike
i am different"

"Happiness is ambition" because without the promise of love, you lose all superficial ambition. There is no point in accomplishing any of the many things there are to do in the world, when love is being destroyed for you, so you lose all motivation even to so much as get out of bed. Dylan mentions "ambition" in this way, later, in the pressures he receives from his parents, who have no regard for his state of love.

"Desolation is knowledge".. I relate this line to how I felt in sophomore year of high school. I remember there was a time, which happened rather quickly, where I felt like I had "woken up". Like I had been partially asleep, in comparison, the whole previous part of my life. I know that this experience was brought on by the pain of watching everyone move up the social ladder with their mating, leaving me feeling left behind, desperate and tormented in effect. Desolated. Something about that made me see the world in a different way which.. honestly felt very real, in some spiritual sense. Like I could listen to a sad song, and perceive a whole new meaning in it, which seemed racked with meaning I wouldn't have been able to entirely sense before. It's like I was able to see something other people could not. I kind of wonder if Dylan was having a similar experience and meant the same thing, with this line.

"Denial is helpless" because Dylan can't just listen to the many stupid little rationalizations and excuses and explanations for what he is supposed to do, how he is supposed to think, or how he is supposed to feel, as a way of fixing the problem. Perhaps they may work for some others, but none of them work for Dylan, denying the problem isn't helping, and he knows it.

"Martyrism is hope for others"... Dylan sees himself as a martyr. He sees himself as having cared and been abandoned by whore society in return, and that is the first part of his martyrism. The second part is death. He sees his potential suicide as something that can be heroic and meaningful, through this fact of him having been abandoned. It's not a selfish thing, it's the exact opposite. Dylan doesn't just merely care about his "true love", he cares about all people who give their love and make sacrifice, all the lonely souls, and he knows what such a "martyrism" would mean to them. Dylan truly cares about other people, it's not just about complaining for his own sake.

"Advantages taken are causes of martyrism"... as in "taking advantage." obviously because, again, he feels his peers (like Zach and Devon) have profited off of his consideration and sacrifice, and abandoned him in return.

"Death is a reprieve"... Kind of a way of saying that what Dylan is experiencing feels worse than death. Death truly becomes warm and inviting as an alternative to such a desolate existence. This makes the majority of society responsible for a crime worse than murder. External vs. internal, form vs. content: the murder of a physical body is one crime, but the murder of love can never be forgiven.

"I am different"... all of this is what makes Dylan feel "different." Being different is not some vague or superficial thing, a fashion, or personality, political/religious/demographical alignment or anything like that. We have to be very clear that, in Dylan's experience, being different is about the fact of Dylan's loneliness, love and values, vs. other people's lack of them. As they always say, "there are two types of people in this world...", and this is the most fundamental separation that can be made between two people.

I should also note that the ideas of being "normal" & "fitting in" are concepts that are based on, strongly motivated by our instincts to gain status and inclusion, to be accepted by the group for the sake of power.. This is where conformity and imitation come from, and what alienates people. Our drive to gain this status and not miss out. One can always attempt to do things like dress differently or act extreme as a way to prove that they are still special, "different", but it will be hollow unless there is a fundamental difference which sets them apart. This is why simple loneliness is the most fundamental difference which can be made to set people apart.

"the people i helped, abandon me
i am denied what i want,
to love & to be happy
being made a human
without the possibility of BEING human"

By speaking of being made a "human", Dylan is talking about the basic needs and vulnerabilities that seem to be a part of the human experience, a fundamental part of the mortal human body which he finds himself born in. The fact that he is just a lone soul in a big world, who needs to have human contact, to be loved, noticed, appreciated, understood and so on. None of these things are weaknesses, just an honest part of human experience.

By speaking of not being allowed to "be human", Dylan is talking about being restricted from love and affection and inclusion. The concept that other people go about enjoying experiences, dating, fucking, while Dylan remains alone, with no one, no dates, no experiences... there is a subtle but powerful feeling of something very wrong, insulting, and dehumanizing about this. That feeling of knowing other people are long since used to everything, and all you want is merely someone to hold you, yet you've never even felt that before and can't have it. Someone to just touch you, feel you, tell you they love you, socialize & interact with you and be with you. The need for such a thing is overwhelmingly powerful, but so so hard to face and confront...

There is a need to just be touched. When you've had a hard day and given all you can give, and things are just not going well, and you've never had anyone in your life, and all you want is just someone there, to appreciate you, hug you, so you can feel their warmth... yet other people continually rob that experience for themselves instead, exploit and destroy it, out of whatever cruel nature.

Worse still, they then make jokes about it, mock you, tell you you aren't allowed to feel what you do feel, or aren't allowed to hate them for stealing and exploiting those experiences... Shaming and hating you for judging them.

You do not feel allowed to be made human when you've waited so long and there's still just no one in sight at all, yet other people, who never waited at all, just claimed and continue to claim everything... for free.

I think people are terribly afraid, mortified, of looking at these feelings, and this is what Dylan means by "self-awareness", above all else. The fact that he is confronting these feelings and not repressing them. It's difficult to explain exactly how hard this confrontation can be. I feel I have never truly and fully confronted and understood these feelings, though I constantly aspire to, and that if I did, they would kill me.. or something catastrophic. As a comparison, I can't exactly comprehend what kind of daring it takes to wake up in the morning and march off to school to kill a bunch of schoolmates and then oneself, but to fully confront these feelings must at least be somewhere in the same category.

It's not any other problem which Dylan considers restricting him from feeling human, it's THIS. The exclusion from love is the most profoundly dehumanizing emotional experience possible.

Nowhere in Susan Klebold's (Dylan's mother) writings do I find any trace of her recognizing and understanding this in Dylan, and such a common, callous lack of awareness & empathy on her part truly disgusts me.


How else can I express what I mean? It's so hard to describe these things, with our petty words. The thought of going through life alone, in the context of a promiscuous society, comes with the most incredibly mortifying, dehumanizing, intolerable, unbearable sense of wrong. These feelings are so sickeningly GRUELING to go through. Like this is not just something that you can do to a person, they're a HUMAN BEING who needs to be VALIDATED and LOVED and are not just simply built to endure this kind of treatment.

But.. you know.. society just goes on making virgin jokes and the like.. even right on mainstream television. I guess as a way of repressing it all.

"The Disarmament of Dylan Klebold"

(The words in this drawing are the lyrics from "Disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins.

Disarm was one of Dylan's favorite songs.)

"Id rather have nothing than be nothing
some say godliness isn't nothing"

As can be gathered by pretty much all of Dylan's writings up to this point, when Dylan says he "has nothing" he is talking about romantic affection. By saying Dylan would rather have nothing than be nothing, the association can be made that he sees whores - the arrogant and greedy, as worthless, without soul. On the converse, he knows his value, as a lonely soul. He goes on in the next line to talk about his godlike nature, further reinforcing the point. You typical breed like Dave Cullen, Susan Klebold, and pretty much everyone else I've ever heard analyze Dylan ever, can say what they want about Dylan "hating himself", "blaming himself", but they're all projecting ideas onto him that are inaccurate, perceiving Dylan superficially, without that inner-awareness, as he said they would. I think the fact that so many people automatically see Dylan as "self-loathing" also reflects what I said about society perceiving virgins as worth less, weaker, less capable, etc. "Losers." And thus worth less, by a standard of greed and power. Dylan obviously doesn't share this same perception of himself. At the very least not fully or exactly, and aspires to continue to break it. He knows there's something wrong with all these common perceptions people have, and he's struggling with it against the entire grain of culture, which is a massive force working against any person attempting to confront these issues.

This is also, of course, a statement showing that Dylan's problem is not just simply being excluded or rejected against his will, no, Dylan values and wants to be a virgin. It is indeed what sets him apart from the worthless qualities that would make him nothing more than a 'jock'-type of person.

By saying "godliness isn't nothing", Dylan is remarking over the paradoxical nature of valuing and wanting something which he also doesn't desire, on a more primitive level.

"Ok... hell & back... ive been to the zombie bliss side... & I hate it as much if not more than the awareness part. I'm back now.... a taste of what I thought I want... wrong. Possible girlfriends are coming [illegible] [redacted].. I'll give the phony shit up in a second. want TRUE love..."

I believe this (and the next quote) refer to what Dylan's parents described as a "group date" that Dylan went on. I'm not sure I'd exactly call it a date, it sounds basically like a meeting of people with potential interest in each other, in order to get to know each other. But whatever it was, this is the kind of behavior which Dylan describes as "zombie" behavior.

Once again Dylan contrasts this zombie behavior with his awareness. It is at odds with his higher, better, truer self.

I smile at how he says "I'm back now...." as if reassuring the reader that he's not abandoning them. As if he departed on a literal physical journey, but then changed his mind and returned home.

He describes with emphasis how he was wrong for thinking this was what he wanted. Basically, he has so far in his journal described how he hates and envies whores.. but with this new statement, he is remarking how, although he can't STAND being isolated and excluded, the idea of being a common whore is so repugnant, so meaningless and soulless to him, that, in a strange way, he almost considers it as being worse. It is a strange notion - which I should note does not dispel their guilt - but I understand it.
He follows this up with a passionate declaration that he is determined to be alone, rather than a phony person. Dylan is aware now that he is not just the kid who can't get anyone to talk to him anymore, girlfriends are within his reach, but he is making the more strong & confident choice to be who and what he believes in. To be alone.

"lucky bastard gets a perfect soulmate, who he can admit FUCKIN SUICIDE to & I get rejected for being honest about fuckin hate for jocks."

This refers to Zach again. It sounds like, on this "group date", Dylan must have tried to talk about how he feels about "jocks", and I'm guessing these girls saw this as lame and childish, or stupid, and either somewhat ridiculed him for it or maybe even outright judged it as bigoted.
We have to remember that for Dylan, Jock = Whore. Arrogant, greedy, superficial. It's one of those words that gives him a handle, an easier, more comfortable way of expressing the qualities he considers negative to a person's being, against which he contrasts his more mind-based, devoted, meek, loving qualities.
These girls apparently did not understand or appreciate this, and so basically he sees how he is being given the short end of the stick as a "reward" for his better, more giving nature, and attempting to describe why the simple principle of that is just so wrong.

He uses the phrase "being honest", and it sort of suggests that maybe Dylan was aware that speaking about his "hate for jocks" was kind of a risky thing to do, and he could have tried to act like more of a macho, invulnerable & normal guy perhaps, but he did it anyways because he's awesome like that, and they spit it back in his face.
I feel the same way every time I use words like "whore", "slut", "promiscuous", etc. I know that there is always some self-righteous 'enlightened whore' type hearing me who's going to get all bent out of shape and consider me stupid, bigoted, backwards, "judgmental", religious, sexist, intolerant, "not getting it", embarrassing, etc. But I can't respect that and also have had to come to terms with the fact that, although I want and need friends, it's worse for me to be friends with anyone like that, who does not understand and respect why I hate whores.

"why is it that the zombies achieve something me wants (overdeveloped me). They can love, why can't i? The true existence lives in solitude, always aware, always infinite, always, looking, for, his love. Peace might be the ultimate destination... destination unknown... i want happiness. Abandonment is present for the martyr. my thoughts exist in, want to live in. I want to find a room in the great hall & stay there w. my love forever. sadness seems infinite, & the shell of happiness shines around. Yet the true despair overcomes it this lifetime"

"They can love, why can't I?" Why do they get to just do what they want, while Dylan goes on alone? What gives them the right? How can this be accepted by culture as something that's just OK? Like, fair enough, they're whores, so they can do what they want, and you can just be alone. Just be alone, watch from the sidelines, and wait for someone else. Is that so easy for other people to just look over?

Dylan sounds like he's starting to pull things out of his intuition.. like he is discovering basic truths buried within his being, when he starts describing the qualities of a person he believes in. The "true existence". Sometimes the things he says don't even really seem to make sense, it just seems like he's wandering through his deeper self and unconcerned with the words on the surface.

He refers to the "great hall" again, from before, where he describes seeing life as a cycle. He is talking about something much bigger then all of this.. he is talking about breaking free from this reality, this prison. He talks about this lifetime being destroyed, and that further suggests a concept of reincarnation.

He refers to the "shells" again, remarking on the false nature of people's "lives". (as in "having a life") And it seems basically everyone is caught up in this hollow chase, which makes the human world all the more disillusioning.

"Farther & farther distant... That's what's happening. me & everything that zombies consider real... just images, not life."

Alienation reflects loneliness and exclusion. It is not some other, strange concept. Dylan has found himself alienated as well, simply from being alone and having values which a shallow society does not understand.

"Eric will be getting farther away soon... I'll have less than nothing... how normal. I wanted to love... i wanted to be happy and ambitious and free & nice & good & ignorant.... everyone abandoned me.... i have small stupid pleasures,... my so called hobbies & doings.... those are all thats left for me. < clinging onto the smallest rocks... many people climbing up a never-ending vertical cliff.... [redacted] & [redacted] found a plateau to exist on....they walked up me to get to it. Nobody will help me... only exist w. me if it suits them. i helped, why cant they? [edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want. more crazy...deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([redacted] & [redacted] gettin drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die."

I think this was around a time that Eric was pursuing interest in some girl.. Someone else helped me piece this one together, in context with Dylan's life regarding his friends. This is what Dylan is referring to by "Eric will be getting farther away." Eric wasn't completely averse to dating and Dylan seems to recognize/perceive that Eric doesn't really care the way he does, and is liable to abandon him as well. Dylan is afraid that Eric will just turn into another Zach. Dylan considered Zach a best friend, but at one point in describing Eric, scribbles a word out and describes Eric as a "very good" friend. Was it possible he was considering him as best friend? I think Dylan is broken to investing that much of his trust into a friend again, and Eric doesn't offer much reassurance.

Dylan has been ready to die and considering massacre for a while, and hates that Eric, although presently an outsider; relatable, is liable to just betray their comradeship by running off to be with some girl, too. I believe Dylan would be willing to be the closest friends with anyone, no matter what their interests or traits, but they have to be honest and true.

Dylan laments the life and motivation, ambition, interests he has lost because of all this game of social hierarchy. Maybe he should have just remained stupid and not questioned things. Maybe he should have lived a hollow, shallow, hedonistic, self-serving life like everyone else.

When he describes his hobbies, doings, and small, stupid pleasures, he's referring to the emptiness that now exists for all the little things he once enjoyed, because of the promiscuity of others. It's no use fighting, it really is a very real phenomenon.. When you just wanted to enjoy playing some game or building some craft, or whatever, but are made aware that your peers are having a night out on the town, and you just can't/won't participate, it all just becomes very empty and pathetic. It just makes you feel even more alone and like you are wasting away, rotting from the inside out. The hobby you once enjoyed now makes you feel cut off, deprived, isolated and invalidated, inhuman. It's this feeling which serves as the basis whereby people call others things like pathetic nerdy faggots with "no life." "loser probably can't get laid", "why don't you get a life", etc. I still can't figure out if people really mean to be that evil, or if they really are just that stupid and oblivious.

Dylan refers to his "cliff theory" when he describes "many people climbing up a never-ending vertical cliff", which I'll save for discussing later (since he illustrates it later on.)

"I helped, why can't they?" Really, why can't they? Dylan did what was right, why won't anyone else? Why does everyone in this world just make excuses and rationalizations and lies? Why can't anyone else even admit that this is a problem and at least attempt to care about it or begin to allow it to be addressed?
And how am I expected to see Dylan as some kind of bad person for wanting to create a statement about it, when it's obvious no one will listen or even acknowledge its existence in the first place?

"Everyone moves up I always stayed." And that's his right. It's not a fault, it's his human right to value himself and his personal world, privacy, and defend it all he wants.

"everything is as least expected. The meak are trampled on, the assholes prevail, the gods are decieving, lost in my little insane asylum w. the outhouse redneck music playing... wanna die & be free w. my love... if she even exists. She probably hates me... finds a [illegible] or a jock who treats her like shit."

The nature of the world is curiously the opposite of what Dylan knows, somewhere within himself, of what the world should be. That is why it's "least expected." For his love he is abandoned/betrayed, and then harassed by "jocks" over it, who claim victory as a reward for their own lack of love. It's all backwards...

I'm sure Dylan experienced this.. these guys that mate/fuck and forget what would mean the world to him, and then express their dominance over him through their harassment of him. Why do I have to say any more than this? How is that OK? Not just merely the bullying aspect - that is a outer expression. How is the underlying power struggle of this promiscuity OK?

...I am hesitant to mention "bullying", because it's way overemphasized, and very easy for people to just blame everything on "bullying", while ignoring the underlying power struggle, promiscuity.. and I imagine people do this as a way of avoiding the problem, but I should mention it. Because wherever there is promiscuity, bullying naturally follows. It finds its entire basis in this struggle for power and self-validation. Bullying is not bullying without it. Technically, any negative behavior could be called "bullying", which is why I think the term is stupid, but it really only finds any meaning when its basis is formed in that expression of sexual, domineering, hierarchical power, and feeds off of it. (They even call it "teasing", as if depriving or gloating over another, or "chastising", as if making chaste.) After all, what separates the violent actions of someone like Dylan from a bully in the minds of so many? One is done in the pursuit of power, the other is done in vengeful retribution against that power.

Dylan makes it clear that he sees meekness as a positive trait, rather than a weakness. Meekness is the opposite of arrogance; a giving up of power out of consideration for others.. and might be the best word to describe Dylan.

"Wanna die & be free with my love," like, can't this all just be over already, I know all I want is to love and be loved, why can't I just have that? Everything about this world is so desolate and unloving, far from what it should be.

Dylan's statement about "her" finding a jock to treat her like shit reflects how the greed around him terrorizes him. Like everyone does what they want to love, with no regard, while Dylan waits for it, so what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to defend himself? It's a statement reflecting on the horror of investing/gambling his entire life of isolation on this love, and the unthinkable, unbearable possibility that someone else is just casually, obliviously collecting that innocent love for a temporary gratification. This love that represents the validation of his entire life of loneliness. That anyone would rob and claim something he would give up his whole life for, and abandon him in return... is there any way of making someone feel like more of a discarded, disposable, used rag?

Dylan, I am sure, sees the way people around him, "jocks" possess their girlfriends and treat them with total insignificance, like dirt. "like shit." "taking for granted." And because Dylan loves and values so much, this really disturbs and hurts him. This "treating like shit" is a nature fundamental to all promiscuity and cannot be separated. It is exactly what it is. It seems like so many people try to separate objectification from promiscuity.. for example they try to project all that guilt onto men, saying that objectification is something to do with male action, or they try to make it sound like there are just certain extremes whereby promiscuity turns into objectification, like when you become too aggressive or overtly dismissive. Wrong - all promiscuity is fundamentally objectifying because it is literally the superficial use of another person for power and decreased significance, not love. It doesn't matter how "sweet" you act, that's just a mask for using another person.

"Shakespearean Existences"

"I don't know my love: could be [redacted], or [redacted], or [redacted], or [redacted], or anyone. I don't know & im SICK OF NOT KNOWING!! to be kept in the dark is a punishment!!"

Dylan doesn't deserve to exist in the threat, in the lack of safety of not knowing who his love is and whether they are betraying him. He deserves to be assured and considered, now. To not have that reassurance and safety is the same as being betrayed already.

"People eventually find happiness. i never will."

It seems like a fair amount of people start out like Dylan, but quickly sell out and then forget everything of how they felt before... I have observed this. Dylan just doesn't see himself as ever being able to dull his mind and lie to himself like that. He envisions a long, lonely life ahead of him, just going on like this forever, indefinitely.

And who is he supposed to find, even? Hope and opportunity just diminishes over time as everyone abandons him.

(Dylan combines his initials with a redacted love-interest's)

"The cliff theory... everyone trying to get higher & stable.."

In the beginning, everyone has everything, we are all together and equal. Everyone already possesses the validation that they deserve, all we have to do is be responsible to that validation and treat that love with significance and respect and consideration, to let other people have their own lot by not taking more than our own. We can all have an infinite love of our own, and no one is left behind. No one is left out. There are no problems. We all share a mutual friendship of equality, significance, and devotion. Friends are true and do no abandon or compete with each other for power. They are friends, there for you, there with you. We all care and give love towards each other. We have all made and kept a promise to each other, to give the full and complete love and validation that every other deserves. The world is a heaven.

At some point, someone decides that this state of Everything is beneath them, and they want hierarchy over it. Ego creeps in, and they choose to use love to exploit, for their own mere power. Now the competition has begun: they have the new state of 'everything', and have demeaned all others. The initial state of everything is now no longer fulfilling, peaceful and safe, people must now compete and fight and claw their way up the ladder, always in a Machiavellian manner, in order to assure their own lot and life.

What could have been love is now sexual capitalism. The meaning in love, affection, and validation has been bastardized. Everything turns into vanity and superficiality and conflict.

Once it begins this struggle never ends: as soon as a new level is reached, someone sees that they can find a way to climb even higher, to devalue love even more. To collect even more validation for their own egoistic sexual gratification and possession. Descending farther into depravity. You can see how this operates, people can never get enough. No matter how depraved, no matter how much, no matter how extreme, people always want more, they want something sicker, more exploitative, more exciting, more multiplied. They protect themselves from a lower hierarchy by doing this, yet they will never achieve any real, meaningful fulfillment. Love has been destroyed. The world is now an absolute "hell on earth", a nightmare.

Dylan remains at the bottom of this cliff structure. This takes more strength, courage, and love on his part than anything I can think of, yet appears to mostly be perceived as weakness and defect by a sick humanity, and goes completely unappreciated.

On a side note, I think creation myths about things such as the fall from grace, garden of Eden, Adam and Eve stem from this basic idea, symbolize and reflect it. (Religions being a psychological reflection of humanities' subconscious.)

(drawing Dylan left in Eric's yearbook (not in chronological order with other journal pictures))

"I know the meaning of each life: To be loved by your love"

All of this that is weighing so heavily on Dylan, everything that I have been discussing, is not some mere problem, another problem, among many. It's not just A thing that is bothering Dylan. It is THE problem of life. This love and affection is the completion that represents the whole meaning and value of life.

"Soon... either ill commit suicide, or ill get w. [redacted], & it will be NBK for us. My hapiness. her hapiness. NOTHING else matters."

I wanted to mention this entry and the one below even though they're not particularly relevant to the thesis of this blog, because I noticed something this time around reading Dylan's journal, which I hadn't considered before:

"society is tightning its grip on me, & soon I & [redacted] will snap. we will have our revenge on society, & then be free, to exist in a timeless spaceless place of pure hapiness."

Both were written on February 2nd, 1998, a bit over a year before 'Columbine.' I don't believe Eric and Dylan had begun their mutual plans together yet. (but would soon) Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong on any of these facts, but I think it would still be two months before Eric would even start his own journal. Dylan has already long since discussed the need to get a gun to kill people, "NBK" style. (a reference to the movie "Natural Born Killers")

Now Dylan is even talking about a partner, whose name has been redacted. I guess I always thoughtlessly wondered if maybe it was Eric's name which was redacted, even though Eric's name is never redacted elsewhere, but now that I look at it, that doesn't make any sense. Dylan was talking about someone else here. And I believe the person he is talking about is likely his from-afar romantic interest. As in, he is hoping to find his one true love and then kill everyone. The surrounding text in both of these quotes strongly suggests he is referring to this love, a female. Dylan even goes on in his next entry (after these two quotes) describing how him and his love will be "free" and how he feels he is close to reaching or being with her. Everything in Dylan's later journal seems to me like he is basically trying to force love to happen.. what I mean is that he is questioning the basic nature of existence, and trying to make spiritual accomplishments within himself that will cause events in the world to take place, in which he can find his true love. That is to say, like becoming lucid in a dream and then being able to control it. I don't think he is very concerned with trying to operate within the context of the rules of the universe. He wants to understand it and overcome the world and break free in a radical way.

People generally see Eric as stringing Dylan along towards massacre somehow, basically as if he is preying on Dylan and getting him to kill. When I look at all this, it's hard to understand how that makes sense. If Dylan was being coached by Eric, why wouldn't he have referred to Eric? Why would he muse about going on a massacre first by himself, very early, then with someone else other than Eric? Why wouldn't he have made an automatic association between "going NBK" and Eric? Dylan obviously has already developed the idea of actually going on a massacre in real life, independently. And I hope I'm explaining well enough for others to see that Dylan does indeed have a very strong & developed, personal, and independent hatred for the majority - a motivation of his own creation - not the pathetic, weak, mopey, dependent image he is commonly portrayed as.

That's not to say that maybe Eric couldn't have already considered the idea, separately, or maybe even shared such a fantasy with Dylan, (I suppose he did write rants about wanting to kill people on his webpages) but at the very least, Dylan started considering it as a serious, real-life possibility on his own, to be carried out on his own, or with someone else. (other than Eric.) He hadn't even considered Eric as a foremost possible accomplice, yet was already pushing himself towards that end, with a cause unique to his own philosophy. At the very least, his part was his own creation, with his own meaning, and he corrects Eric wherever Eric wavers. (Such as in the basement tapes, when he says "It's people I hate" or "We did what we had to do", or when he asks Eric if he's "still with him", before they entered the library.)

When Eric begins his journal shortly, he will quickly refer to "self-awareness" and his "godlike" nature, many of these concepts which have long since been established in Dylan's journal already, as described here, which I believe supports my idea of these concepts being original to Dylan.

The fact that Dylan and Eric passionately shared these same concepts is evidence that they must have had meaningful discussions about life and what things mean, shared and bounced ideas back and forth off of each other, really, to the point of even passionately inspiring each other.

(Dylan (left) and Eric)

"The purpose of life is to be happy & be with yer love who is equally happy. Not much more to say. goodbye."

All this stuff that we're doing with science and technological development, politics, all our focus on education and business, debates over demographics and social movements, our obsessions with material goods and economics, our mindless entertainment and competitive sports, our many lifestyle choices, the latest video game, the latest fashion, the latest president, the latest governmental philosophy, the latest social movement... what are we doing? What's the value? Where is it going? What happened to simple love?

The point of life is love and completion and the happiness that can only come from it. We destroyed love through this world of whores and greed and hierarchical self-satisfying social-game playing, yet it's the one thing no one ever wants to talk about.

"Almost happiness in
slavery -- the real people (gods)
are slaves to the majority
of zombies, but we know
& love being superior."

The pride of being someone who understands the importance of love is a gift so great it almost outweighs the utter, constant torture of sacrifice that comes with it.

"I didnt want to
be a jock.. i hated
The hapiness
that they
have - & I will
have something
infinitely
better..."

This again contradicts the common conception that we are all supposed to be powerful and status-seeking. Dylan detests the shallow "happiness" these arrogant whores possess, and recognizes how much he deserves something so much more true and real as a reward for his foregoing that lifestyle in pursuit of compassion.

Dylan has probably, upon attempting to explain his grievances, been treated as if he feels inferior and envious of the "jock" lifestyle, as if he aspires to it, and I believe his statement of "I didn't want to be a jock." reflects his frustration with this perception, which is only all too common and assumed. But, why bother explaining... obviously no one is capable of listening, only supporting power-hungry whore society.

"I am GoD. [redacted] is GoD.
& zombies will pay for
their arrogance, hate, fear, abandonment, &
distrust."

Dylan starts likening himself and his (hopeful) true love as parts of god, in their own purity, and contrasts it with the depravity of the zombies. We will return to this concept later.

Dylan's revenge is not some mere teenage angst, some sense of social injustice, another petty war or revolution to be a part of history books. It's not about high school. It's not about bullying. It's not about U.S. culture. Dylan's rage is divine and calls on all apocalyptic, biblical, final-judgment tones. Dylan is trying to express something he feels which is so much larger than life or any kind of shallow posterity.. an unending, eternally burning flame of divine wrath which can never be extinguished once it has begun. He's saying something important about a very deep part of human nature.

Dylan is truly, rightfully vindictive & hateful. These shallow whores deserve this for their lack of love, and the sense about this is overwhelming.

In a democracy, it is the power-hungry masses who oppress the minority of meek, through their own lust for power, masqueraded and idolized as "freedom." There is nothing more noble than monarchy about this, just a shift of power, in all its ugliness. It is as if nothing real can be done unless people make a fundamental change first. If only it were possible to gather up all these guilty souls, together on one island, and just nuke it.

"A Revolution for the Lonely"

"We have proven to fate that we are the everything of purity & halcyon, & that we deserve, need, love, cant exist w/o each other."

Dylan starts using the word "Halcyon" a lot, to describe his ideal state of unimaginable love. I kind of wonder if he got this word from the Halcyon songs by Orbital. I know that either he and/or Eric listened to Orbital, and one of those songs does appear on soundtracks alongside KMFDM, another one of their favorites.

Dylan uses the word "pure" many times throughout his journal, and I don't think he's just throwing the word around. This reflects his loneliness and devotion, the state of giving all and every last bit of your love to another.

He can't exist without love and he's willing to do whatever it takes, WHATEVER it takes, transcending all limitations, to find it, to truly find it, including massacre, suicide.. anything. Love is just too important, and there's nothing in this world that will stop or deter him, anymore.

"its hard, i think that i might not be enough, my mind sometimes gets stuck on its own things, i think about human things. All i try to do is imagine the happiness between us. that is something we cannot even conceive in this toilet earth."

The world is truly ugly, sick, corrupt, and ruined when compared to the state of pure love Dylan knows within himself.

"The everything, the halcyon, the happiness is ours. There will be no notes from me. let the humans suffer w/o my knowledge of the everything."

I believe Dylan is referring to a suicide note. He is already in a place so far beyond and antagonizing of this world that he doesn't even care about explaining himself to it anymore. There's no value in posterity or being remembered by a world you don't respect or value. And what he is referring to is something private, sacred, which the world doesn't deserve to know.. and will never understand or accept anyways. People like to say things about spree killers, like "they want attention." but often that is just people projecting their own self/desires onto others. I don't believe Dylan cared what anyone thought, anymore.

Looking at it now, I guess Dylan really was ready to go by now, and could have. But perhaps the beginning of the development of a grand scheme (of what is now known as 'Columbine') delayed him another year.

"I hoped we could have been together... you seem a lot like me. Pensive, quiet, an observer, not wanting what is offered here (school, life, etc.) You almost seem lonely, like me. You probably have a boyfriend, though"

I can't be sure if this was a part of Dylan's journal and thus in chronological order with the rest of it, or just ordered that way in the police release, but in any event, Dylan wrote a number of notes to his potential love interest/s, which he apparently never sent, and this is one of them.

He lists many qualities that are in line with his own devotion which he hopes to find in this girl.. thoughtfulness, quietness, awareness, distance, loneliness, and he fears the possibility of having already lost this potential to the sake of some shallow romance. "You probably have a boyfriend." Every time he sees such a thing, it stings him. Why is everyone willing to sell out love for the sake of power and self-inclusion so quickly? How can they all be such callous scumbags? Isn't Dylan a human being who deserves consideration? What is he supposed to do?

"The zombies have set their place in my mind. for the cliff theory, Ive jumped off w. [redacted] & we've floated away to the halcyon. the zombies will pay for their being, their nature."

The cliff theory, as I described, is the whole entire mating game, which he is refusing to play, in hopes of finding true, pure love instead. I like how the comparison to jumping off a cliff works, because refusing to play the game, truthfully, is suicide.

"I hate, love things. hate everything, love me & [redacted]. "

Love is the only thing that matters.

(from school library, shot by Dylan)

"I understand that i can never, ever be a zombie, even if i wanted to. the nature of my entity. Soon we will live in the halcyons of our minds, the one thing that made me a god."

When I was young, I thought people understood all these things that I've been saying. I just took it for granted. I thought someone would only be a whore in the most extreme circumstance, and that everyone should hate them for it. I don't understand the dirty jokes and the callous things people say against loneliness or exclusion, I don't understand the stigma against jealousy and having that sense of significance and values. My parents didn't teach me any of this, they have fought me on this path my whole life.. Parents, my parents, Dylan's parents, they just have that same instinctive drive that everyone else does, and want you to gain power status, and procreate, represent them. Dylan's mother has made it abundantly clear in her novel that she doesn't even begin to recognize any of this as Dylan's problem, and was not even remotely someone Dylan could turn to for real support and understanding. Yet, when I was a little kid I just looked inside myself and knew all of this stuff to be the truth. It's right there. And it's still there, but less clear now that I'm older and less innocent, more "stuck in humanity." When I was very young and beginning to explore this world I just assumed that this was how the world was, the way the world should be. How could it possibly not be? But as I go on through life, through school I find myself alone, feeling as if I'm the only one in the world that feels this way. That's how things appear. And we all have a choice to follow that inner sense, or to live in an external shell of understanding and follow everyone else. The pull of what I feel inside is too strong to turn away from. Even when I can't make very clear sense of it, or even when it terribly torments or humiliates me. I hear all the things people say, I hear all of the little excuses, rhetoric and sexual propaganda, and none of it has ever made any sense to me. How does all of this continue to go on? It's horrifying and no matter how much I suffer I can never seem to accept any of it as real. Like I don't belong here on this planet, in this realm, at all, and I want to leave so bad.

I don't get it, I'm always so disturbed and depressed by the things people say and do, that just get taken for granted in virtually all of society. And the awareness is high enough that I feel I could not even block it out if I wanted to. What is it that makes me feel so different? I can't think of anything else that could make me feel so fundamentally different, alien. What is it about a person that makes them have no regard for this? I can't understand it. Like that's something I never in a million lifetimes would have expected a person could be. I can understand a lot of things.. of what people do. But not this. It's not a comfortable place to be. Dylan is coming to terms with the fact that there are some things he just can't be, and it's a mystery what makes us this way.

"I AM THE GOD
OF THE EVERYTHING
W. [redacted]"

Once upon a time I looked inside myself and asked myself what it is I was hoping to find in the idea of "god." I found that all I really want is someone there to love me and guide me.. to complete me. The completion I seek in a soulmate is the same completion I search for in god. I am alone in this world, and this reflects my existential loneliness on the greater scale. I think that even when people search for other intelligent life in the universe, talking about "not being alone in the universe", it partially, subconsciously reflects this state.

So, within myself I found that in the concept of god, what we are really referring to is a completed self. My soul is a broken piece of a completed self.

Accompanying one of my drawings, "Devotion IV - A Memory, in Autumn", I wrote the following as part of a poem:

"In the beginning,
before the dirt and the earth
circling planets, of the seasons and the days,
there was love;
only love was truth, and love was only true.

We were
as perfect counterparts in an unbreakable love
and we knew that giving ourselves to each other was our only purpose
and we would never need any other.

In completion, there was no 'us'
there was only god, and we were."

Perhaps Dylan was discovering the same answers within himself..

"the pain multiplies infinitely. never stops. im here, STILL alone, still in pain."

This entry is from January 20, 1999. Only three months left before 'Columbine.'

Dylan is referring to how it feels like an eternity of loneliness, when you remain in the experience of that initial state of innocence, going through the years alone as everyone begins moving up the ladder and leaving you behind. Even still just in high school. I remember most of all how those initial years felt like an eternity. Losing my mind every day of my life.

Why does Dylan use the word "infinite" so much..? The value of love is infinite, therefore the pain that reflects it in loneliness and abandonment is infinite. It is literally as if the pain cannot be comprehended, only let in as much as a person is willing to be aware of it in one moment.
I've found it interesting when looking within myself, the way these psychological concepts of love and pain and value operate, being basically mathematical and relative in nature. I feel that Dylan's reference to mathematical concepts is accurate.

"Im forever sorry, infinitely, about the pornos. My humanity has a foot fetish, & bondage exteme liking. i try to thwart it, sometimes to no effect, Yet the masturbation has stopped. I'm sorry [redacted] Always."

In this soft, quiet space Dylan has carved out within his awareness of himself, he finds that even being a virgin is not enough. Things like masturbating or watching porn make him feel tainted and degraded. He recognizes that, although he is strongly compelled to them in his loneliness and need for affection and touch, and on some level feels excited within them, he nevertheless recognizes that ultimately he is not proud of himself for it. It's not part of his truer, greater nature that he aspires to through death. He doesn't merely contrast his own godlike nature with others' zombie-like behavior, he even contrasts the more glorious, gorgeous parts of his own spirit with the more base parts of his own "humanity." He kind of dissociates himself from himself by saying his "humanity has a foot fetish." His humanity: his body, his brain, not HIM. HE is pure and HE is GOD, and will transcend all human limitations to return to his own spiritual nature.

Dylan's sense of devotion/jealousy to another is not shallowly limited by the bounds of a "relationship," Set apart and objectified. He's not interested in sharing a mere portion of his life with another, he wants to share the whole thing and he wants it to be special and pure and significant. His sorrow towards his true love over such a thing as even just looking at porn reflects this. I really don't even know what other possible explanations could be offered for this statement..

It is fortunate for me that Dylan mentions this bit, because it puts the final nail in the coffin of any remaining doubt I had over Dylan's psychology. One could have, for example, argued that Dylan is speaking in some kind of generalized terms about loneliness and love, which does not necessarily include sex, but with this bit he makes it clear that sex is a part of the equation, and how he feels about it.

Dylan mentions trying to stop masturbation several times in his journal. At one point early on he mentions doing things to "morally cleanse" himself, such as deleting the "extremes" of his harddrive, and I suspect he's talking about deleting porn. This display of sexual power is obviously disturbing to him. Even killing and death holds merely interchangeable, secondary concern to him. People are not recognizing the importance of the affection we share and the sacredness that our personal world holds.

These bits are almost a bit surprising, since Dylan usually talks in a pretty abstract way. In his journal, he never uses the words "whore", "virgin", "promiscuous", etc. He never even says "sex." I really don't know why but I have many theories.. Maybe he thinks those words would put people off, and he should just describe the fundamental experiences. Or maybe the stigma people have against those words makes him feel too uncomfortable with using them. Or maybe he was afraid of fully confronting things this explicitly within himself only until the very end of his life. Or maybe he is trying to avoid the idea that it's merely sex which is the problem, when sex is just an extreme of the problem.. dating and relationships and even ego-friendships form a major part of the problem, too... it's a nature of people which is the fundamental & overall issue. Everything he says does come off as much more meaningful with the way he abstracts it. Or maybe he just wants to avoid the brutality of such explicit terms. Or maybe, despite all his general self-awareness, he has trouble fully confronting things this explicitly. I don't know.

But it's obvious to me now, and it's important to make clear what Dylan was saying, because it seems people will ignore it at any chance they get. Dylan was an actual rebel, not the cookie cutter kind you're sold on TV, all trying to gain acceptance and status with each other, too terrified to do anything too "uncool." I see these vain 16 year old Columbine fan girls that imitate Dylan fawningly, and then say how they're proud to not be a virgin anymore like "daddy wanted them to be." Or talk about how they want to fuck Dylan, just like their monkey instincts programmed them to. It's so hard to endure such complete blithering, shallow, cold-heartedness, I really don't know how I continue living on this planet myself, acknowledging their existence. I wish I could somehow show them all of this, everything Dylan said, in one picture, make it clear and undeniable. Shove it in their face and say "HERE. This is who Dylan was. Not like you."

"Kyle Kills the Hippie Shit"

"I know that i am different, yet i am afraid to tell the society. The possible abandonment, persecution is not something I want to face yet it is so primitive to me."

As always, and as can be gathered from the fact that Dylan is just talking about nothing but the same thing over, and over, and over, and over... Dylan is referring to his lonely, devoted values, virginity. That is what makes him different. That is what is so personal, and painfully hard to talk about, embarrassing. "uncool." In how many social situations is talking about such "prudish" things ever remotely comfortable? How often does it make you out to be cool, badass, and 'down'? And, being seen as some kind of freak, defect or nutcase for it in return is unbearable.. the need to be approved of is very powerful... yet all so primitive. The social responses we have to things are extremely strong, and not always simply broken by becoming aware of them.

"I guess being yourself means letting people know about inner thoughts too, not just opinions and fashions."

(January 30, 1998)

Dylan isn't just about wearing NIN shirts and backwards caps and black dusters, listening to KMFDM, playing Doom, neglecting his homework, cutting himself in his room, and blowing up his school.. what is the meaning behind all of this? Without such meaning, what's to separate him from any one of those blithering fan girls? Or those other school shooters who merely sought acceptance? Or even any of those "jocks" at school? Everything symbolizes something, it expresses something based on its foundation, so it's important to have a fundamental (deep/inner) understanding, so you know what it is that you're talking about. I don't think people can appreciate how much outer symbols are given the power they have, based on their inner content.

As Emily Dickinson said:

"The Outer—from the Inner
Derives its Magnitude—"

"I will be free one day, in the land of purity & my happiness, I will have a love, someone who is me in a way. Someday... Possibly thru this life, maybe another, but it will happen..."

Why do I feel all these same words inside myself? How is this possible? Why do I understand and relate so precisely to Dylan's understanding, yet it feels so foreign to society that I'm afraid to even speak about it? No one taught me this.. society has done everything to make me ashamed of it, to judge it and ridicule it. And yet I still find such a remarkable, developed similarity in all of what Dylan describes. How is that possible if what I experience doesn't come from someplace valid and real? After all, we didn't just happen to randomly decide on all of these things on our own, making them up as we go, Dylan and I.
And what does this say for Dylan's "influences" towards this end? He wasn't influenced to do all this, just the opposite, he bypassed all influence to find something inside himself. Something that's painful to admit to anyone, whether friends, parents, or teachers. That is why no one can figure it out. That is why, to this day, people still ask questions and wonder.. "WHY?" And they'll never have closure, because they'll never find that answer, in the externals. Columbine went so severely against the grain of what we're taught, what we're pushed towards, and it did that by coming from within, because there is no other way to legitimately bypass cultural influence, outside truest introspection. All of these thoughts and ideals I observe in Dylan, I can only see as coming from the act of intrepidly following one's own internal line of reasoning and intuition, blocking out all outside influence, resulting in extreme alienation in the process.

"Love is more valuable than anything I know. To love is to enter a completion of one's self. I hate those who choose to destroy a love, who take it for granted. love is greater than life even. As i look for love, i feel i can't find it. ever. but something tells me i will. Someday. Somewhere. As my love will find me. She feels as i do right now, i can feel it."

"I hate those who choose to destroy a love, who take it for granted." ...This is not a statement of what Dylan intends, it is merely an introspective statement of what he finds within himself, to be true. I hate those who treat love as a casual thing, arrogantly collect it, destroying it. And on the bigger scale the way all of culture seems to accept this, right out in the open, without flinching. This is just what is written inside of me, and I can either attempt to deny it or be honest about it. People tell me I can't hate for that... am I not supposed to feel humor in a good joke, either? They have no idea what they're saying.

It's funny, Dylan's mom thinks Dylan truly forgave Zach and Devon. It just shows how out of touch she is. Maybe she just wishes. Maybe she doesn't want to confront any of this weight herself. Maybe she even feels guilty?

Dylan's mom has publicly called Dylan a "monster" for killing. But that's her value structure, not his. "Love is greater than life even." In her novel, Dylan's mom makes casual reference to sex stories hidden from parents, describing them as funny, comparing them to Dylan's covert life, and at another point makes the promiscuous out to be troubled victims, as if to feel sorry for, comparing them to Dylan in his own troubles. How can she be so oblivious to everything about Dylan? To dishonor the most core part of Dylan that way, while claiming she loves him, through tears? She goes on and on about "If only he had talked to me about this, we could have worked this out", while simultaneously ridiculing his grievances and describing him as mentally ill for them, constantly. I want to tell her, "Your son did all of this, just to make people listen and understand. And you won't even listen. Not even now." He wasn't afraid/ashamed of expressing himself, as she claims - he just knew she was absolutely not someone he could confide in, at all. In Dylan's journal, he describes his parents as "pissing him off", "hating him", "zombies", and "manipulative." And I'm definitely inclined to see this as much more accurate.

Given Dylan's statements about his parents, I believe I know what's going on.. as I can only imagine with any common parents, and any child like Dylan...
Dylan's parents don't see his troubles as valid and worth attention, (in fact, they don't even perceive them at all, not even today) and are much more interested in pushing him towards vain, worldly success and ambition, with no concern towards his ostracization from love and what it means to him. It's primitive instincts - they are concerned with gearing him up for gaining power and procreating, and if he refuses to participate in the game, they get on his case, with callous disregard for his troubles and feelings about all of it, seeing him as a failed seed. And that's as far as their "love" extends, what parent-child "love" is known as, in this world. On such a path as Dylan's, even your own parents stand against you. Maybe people like her are the real monsters?

 

"I now know the final
battle. the pain of
humanity is our love..."

I think this might be my favorite quote of Dylan's. The meaning isn't even very clear to me on the surface, and yet it hits me really hard. I will attempt to describe at least something about it, though..

I'm not sure how much "battle" refers to Columbine, but I kind of take it to mean partially Columbine, and partially an inner struggle that accompanies Columbine. Some way of Dylan proving himself, through the act.

The pain of humanity is our love.. god, what does that mean, Dylan?
Something about the pain we go through in life is a proving ground, for love. We starve and suffer for each other, and that is our love for each other, our devotion, which makes it meaningful.

"The Pain of Humanity is Our Love"

When Dylan says "I love you" to his true love, I get the feeling like he is secretly, almost unknowingly speaking for anyone who relates to him. The devotion to one is love towards all.

"As a man, a conquerer does his deeds of greatness, he thinks he is complete.
Yet, the true great person achieves happiness only when he has met his soulmate: 
Alone unkown until the first time they lay eyes on each other.
A true love is hard to come by,
yet the most fulfilling, beautiful, completing
achievement any man can have. Some have wealth,
some have power, some have great intellect, yet i feel
an infinant # of times greater than those as i
have found my true love."

We are fed this notion by movies and books and media and culture of what a "hero" should be. And it's always a superficial battle. But such achievements are hollow and in vain without true love and completion. Any other achievements would just leave Dylan feeling even more empty, as he remains alone. And so, they have revealed their lack of meaning. And thus, he has no worldly ambition, despite his parents' insistence. College.. career.. kids.. what is the point of all of this..

I'm told that if I joined the military, or became a firefighter, then I'd be a hero, someone worthy of respect and gratitude. I don't see the hero in those things. That's not a real hero. It's so.. simple.. so superficial. Kill all the bad guys and get the girl... Action, adventure and a paycheck, little boys playing war, where is the real tribulation?

A real hero is someone who sacrifices and gives all their love every day of their life, remaining desolate and abandoned, alone, and unappreciated in return.

"The candle burns....
the stars set the
mood..... the
smoke fills the room.....
the hope is sent
thru infinite places...
all of purity.... "

...I wonder where Dylan is now.
Are you out there? Did you find your Halcyon? Does any of this have an end?

(Dylan in back, Eric front)

"Humans are zombies, they search for acceptance & greed & kill themselves thru each other."

"Seeking acceptance" is the act of selling oneself out to gain the approval and affection of others, to socially hierarch oneself. Where all the soulless traits of modifying one's behavior and appearance and ideas, to conform, derives from. The power struggle. This is motivated merely by the need for love at its core, and that love is bastardized, used for power by its misuse, ideals compromised, thus sold out. Whether people want to recognize it or not, we live in an economy of love, which brings us to our second point: "greed." How often does Dylan mention money in his journal? I count once.. How often does he mention love and affection? Endlessly. He's obviously talking about people's whore nature.

Why are we at war? Why have we always been in conflict for as long as mankind can remember? The lack of external peace merely results from our own lack of inner peace, it is a reflection of it. So what is the cause of all of this? When we study ape behavior, what can be seen? The way they fight for dominance, over a mate, form hierarchies accordingly, battle to procreate, become territorial. Rape. Torture. Kill. Survive. The drive to mate is the drive to live, and carries the same weight.

Speaking of rape.. why do we have television full of sexual desensitization all day, and then intermittent shows (like Law & Order) screaming about rape, in between? What are they trying to accomplish? And why does it seem like the only people who ever want to rant and crusade about rape do so only alongside the exoneration of promiscuity? What sense does that make, and what are the actual results? It seems society is actually just trying to repress and project guilt. They're not helping. Why isn't it painfully obvious that all that sexuality, promiscuity, social power struggle is the exact and only source of such problems? They all get what they payed for. How can these "proud slut" types hate and blame people like Dylan for being against their society of greed? How can anyone be so unappreciative and mean? How am I supposed to be anything less than blackout-enraged over that? It's my human right to hate them, more than anything else in the world. There's nothing that can make up for the horrific wrong I feel over that.. over them. Love was my personal world, my privacy, my validation, my right to preserve and expect back, in safety and assurance and respect, and they raped my whole life of investment in myself away from me, while crowning themselves the martyr, victor, and hero.

But even more important than that, how can they judge me for my criticism of them? I mean, what is rape, exactly? It's not just a physical act. That is the superficial perception. What is the meaning? The idea, in its most meaningful sense, is the value & investment a person has placed on themselves, on their love, and the robbery of that value, by another. The betrayal of love is the content, rape is merely one form. The love we give to each other is the same as the love we preserve in ourselves, the whole point of such preservation; the value in sharing it ...yet these sluts want to rant about rape, only as a manipulative way of exonerating sexual desensitization, irresponsibility, and slut culture? Spitting on, ridiculing & shaming my values and my sense of being preyed on? With no respect for the long-suffering love, sensitivity and patience others give, which is exactly defending that love and significance which people are trying to keep?

Their "ideals" and lifestyles have turned society into a place where the one more above all else is "have sex or die." And they'll never admit that, yet they have the audacity to speak self-righteously about rape. There's nothing bad enough that can ever happen to people like that.

Am I wrong for saying all of this? Is Dylan? Haven't we said enough? haven't we gone to lengths enough to describe and defend it? Haven't we shown how much we believe in it, deserving some consideration? Haven't we articulated it in so many different ways? In so many aspects? As to at least be taken seriously? As honest, with respect? To be taken as valid? To be heard, and addressed? Are we just supposed to shut our mouths and believe there's nothing there, that all of this comes from nowhere?

(Outside Columbine High School, April 20, 1999)

Incidentally, speaking of primitive hierarchical/procreative behavior, I was never much of a fan of Eric's "natural selection" philosophy/statement. Isn't this brutal dynamic of nature the exact thing that was hurting him most? I get that he sees himself as the more evolved, more mentally developed kind, and his tactical use of tools was a way of proving himself over the other, lesser thugs, perhaps in a society where he feels held back by laws and rules, but that's about where my understanding ends. Natural selection was never working for him. Maybe someday... as like when Homo Sapiens eventually surpassed and eradicated the Neanderthals, but it will still be the same problem as we have now unless people learn how to love, the way Dylan does.

(Though really, I think Eric just wanted to say something about natural selection because he felt evolution was rebellious/shocking towards Christianity, and he wanted to incite such people around him. So now all the Christians with an axe to grind saw Columbine as their holy cow to scapegoat, writing damning and passive-aggressive things on Eric & Dylan's crosses, just like Pontius Pilate did to that heretic of his own day, turning them all into martyrs in the process, and everyone on both sides is so deeply missing the point in all of this superficiality.)

I do appreciate the heretical edge to Columbine, though, I think it needed that. Real love is always a heretical outcast to the social power structure.

"the zombies were a test to see if our love was genuine. we are in wait of our reward, each other."

This sounds reflective of "the pain of humanity is our love." Dylan was meant to prove himself, his love, against the pressures of the world to sell it out. To burn it in fire and make it pure. To be born a man who became god. And what he suffered to give is the reward he earns.

Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where love was rewarded with love, instead of abandonment?

(Dylan, April 19, 1999 (one day left))

"In 26.4 hours ill be dead, & in happiness. The little zombie human fags will know their errors, & be forever suffering & mournful"

And to this day, they remain in the chaos of their denial & repressed guilt, writing books and rewriting laws, forever looking for answers in places they don't exist, for solutions they'll never find, while love remains lost.

———


I remember that day, clearly still.. April 20, 1999

I was in 8th grade, middle school, sitting in the school cafeteria. I was so mortified, so shy and often isolated. I sat by myself at a table, watching everyone around me.. socializing, interacting.

Really, feeling very desperate. I can see where this is all going. All these kids will move up and on and leave me behind. And I can't do anything to stop it, and this will go on forever. I don't understand, I can't just be like that. Like them. They're so.. loud. So rough. So desensitized. Something is missing. It's so hard to place, and yet so clearly there. I want things to remain innocent. But how can I?
This can't just go on forever, I'll die. Won't someone save me? Surely someone must. I really really don't want to go through with this.

I was absolutely dying. Drowning. So many times in my life I have gone through those thoughts.. and not gotten an answer.
Those thoughts terrified me, absolutely ravaged me.
I guess this was the beginning stages of the brooding I had that would take full grip by early high school.

Anyways... in the midst of my misery, lost in my brooding, halfway through lunch, the principal of the school came out, maybe with a teacher, and they were in a bit of a fuss. They exchanged some words and turned on the cafeteria television, announcing that a "school was under attack".

I was so confused. Of course, the type of shooting that Dylan and Eric more or less invented wasn't really a thing back then, so for this to happen was perceived much differently.

the paraphrased thoughts that ran through my head, as I watched helicopter footage circling Columbine High School:

"An attack? who would attack a school? terrorists? (I was thinking older people) why wouldn't they attack like, a government building or banking building or something? a school? this makes no sense. Maybe they want hostages, and school children make a target that will get the community more concerned? I don't get it.."

On the TV you could see blood on the pavement.

After a few minutes it was announced who they believed the suspects to be, that they're students. Kids, their yearbook photos, etc:

"Oh."

just like that, it completely sunk in, as I sat there, alone at my table:

"Oh.... "


Like it all suddenly made perfect sense to me, in my head.

"I wonder why they are so upset.. I feel terrible thinking about what it might be.
... I bet they feel like I do."

I tried to picture what these shooters might be doing, at that exact moment in real time. I imagined them going from classroom to classroom, standing everyone up, taunting them, joking, killing random interspersed students, and then going to the next room.
Back then, SWAT teams had considered that it might be a hostage situation, part of why they waited nearly an hour to get to Eric & Dylan, and then changed tactics after Columbine. But in my head, this picture I imagined just seemed like the natural scenario. And it really struck me.

Why did I suddenly feel so close to whoever was behind this? Why did I feel they were feeling the same as me? It was just an intuition.. that would be left unanswered for years.

I started thinking about the logical extension of such a thing. You can't just get out of something like this. It was pretty clear to me they weren't just thinking they would get away with this or something. They went into this wanting to broadcast their death to the world.

"So they're going to kill themselves...?! right?? I mean.... right??? they have to.." I thought to myself.

God, they seemed so close to me at that moment, so relatable. The teachers had been talking about how the Columbine school district was very similar to our own, when they had turned on the TV. And I was just about to enter high school.

"Those kids are going to kill themselves today. Somewhere over there, on this same piece of land, in another school, these real, live, living kids are really going to do that."

I just couldn't believe it. This affected me really, terribly strongly. I was consumed by that thought for the rest of the day. I felt so.. connected, by it. Like this was something that was meant to reach out to me, to put this decision to die on display, so that the whole world could see, and I could kind of take part in it, in a way. Like, the more spiritual side of dying, kind of. Of going to another world. Of facing that experience. Of brazenly confronting the mysteries of this existence that we're all lost in. I thought about how this display was right in front of everyone, yet the actual passage into death is completely and utterly private, something into which no one else can follow. It all felt so... Personal. Real. Like more real than life.

And of course, it was the end of the school year. And it was beautiful out. So there was almost kind of a feeling of levity and relief to all this, oddly. Like something kind of uplifting, daresay. I remembered that part. I'm not sure how to explain it. Like some kind of release or triumph, in a way. Like becoming free. I still go back to those moments, those feelings, reliving them in my head. because honestly, nothing has ever struck me as being so surreal and expressive. Ever.

Yet I didn't even know the half of it yet. I hadn't read Dylan's journal...

(Dylan (right) & Eric attempting to detonate propane bomb in school cafeteria)

Anyways... I lived in my own little world.
I didn't participate in culture.. watching the news, socializing, hearing details. My parents mentioned maybe a couple things about Columbine. My dad said they were Satanists.. although, even then I kind of had to roll my eyes at the things he would say. But, I pretty much knew nothing about it, for years after. I didn't remember their names, I didn't know what these kids looked like or what they wore or details about their life or their home videos, nothing really. I didn't watch "Bowling for Columbine"... in fact I still haven't. I probably knew even a fair bit less than most.

It's funny, really.. Probably the biggest thing that tipped me off to becoming curious and actively studying Columbine was my mom.

See, a few years after Columbine I bought a black duster. I guess you'll just have to take my word when I say I didn't know anything about the "trenchcoat mafia", Dylan and Eric's supposed involvement, their fashion, and all that. I just wanted a heavier coat that looked "cool", dark and alienated, not some contemporary, fashionable coat from a department store.

I walked into my parents house and my mom literally screamed. I was so confused, and a bit scared. See, she's always treated me like some kind of defect, but she had never screamed before.

"You look like those Columbine killers!!!"
She yelled frantically, as if my soul was in mortal peril.

"Really?" I thought... curious.

(page from Dylan's journal in evidence display case)

I always had that intuition that I had gained in middle school, about what these kids must be like. But I didn't really listen to it, back then. It was there, but repressed. But I was learning. Like so many others, I began reading about Columbine.. and read.. and read.. and read some more. No detail is too minute. With every bit, a better picture of these kids was emerging, a clearer picture, of what they might be like, in person, or as someone you know and are close to.

But I could never believe that they really related to this deepest part of myself. Nah, they must be some common jerks, in the end. They won't know these specific thoughts. My thoughts and feelings. I'd read Dylan's journal, and interpret it in an ambiguous way. A lot of things people say, you know, they could mean something else, not what I would mean if I said it. Words are such a poor medium for these things. And I figured I would just be disappointing myself. No one understands this sense of jealousy and devotion and hatred for this world of people that take all these experiences they casually collect for granted. This.. hierarchy of love, bastardization of love, and the terrible wrong I feel over it. Everywhere I go, people just act confused about what I mean, or just want me to shut up.

Eventually, I had done enough work in myself that I was beginning to understand myself more clearly. Recognize my experiences and confront them. Understand what feelings are processing in myself internally, and not just operate on the surface of what I'm told I'm supposed to be feeling. Of course now I understand this as what Dylan called "self awareness." So, I gave Dylan's journal another read. This time with intent. I was asking myself "is it possible this kid was really having the thoughts and ideas I've had about things? That he really felt all these same specific feelings that are so familiar to me, exactly?" I really made myself aware of that as I read his words, and I looked to try to see if I could prove it. It's easy, of course, to take various statements to mean something or the other. So I was determined to prove it to myself, not just assume he understands me. Afterall, I'm so used to wanting to feel understood by people who say or do something that caught my attention, but who I end up having to painfully admit to myself don't get it at all.

And, god. There was just no more denying it. There was no other way to interpret and put all his words together. I KNEW this kid was feeling what I was, and trying in a million different ways to say it in a way that he could get a handle on, himself, and that he could get others to understand.

But I couldn't believe it! How could he know this!
Columbine was, you know, this big huge event. But when I learned this... this is what was huge for me. This way overtook that superficial spectacle. Now the whole thing just seems like a hole in reality. Like really, just, so, so surreal, and I can't believe they're real and I can't believe they did it, and I can't believe those feelings I identified way back then, that intuition I had about it, was correct, and god, like I need to listen to my intuition more and learn to trust it better.

After high school I haven't been able to cry much, I was just way too deadened to. But ever since I read Dylan's journal that time, I've cried so many times thinking about Dylan and what I know he was trying to say. The comfort is almost unbearable at times. And god I know I'm not the only one. How could one person, one kid ever do so much?

"Ego Games"

("for all you lonely people,
screaming at the top of your lungs,
and no one can hear you:

I know, it's anti-lonely society.
and all those people out there.. they're all so full of shit.

because even when our deaths are televised,
no one will ever listen.")

And, it's not just Dylan. All of this, it isn't really about Dylan. Nor is it about a fascination with "killers." Or art. It's about what I feel is so important... Dylan just being a strong medium for expressing it.

Let's look at Eric, for a minute. I hold that Eric was suffering the same essential problem, underneath everything else. I don't know if he saw it the same way, or cared the way Dylan did, but I think it was the same source of pain, nevertheless.

There's enough there to add up, I think, such as:

• When Eric laments about how every single girl he tried to ask to prom rejected him.
• Or when he penned a note (which was found in his possessions) to a girl at work, bemoaning how girls always seem to choose shallower guys who don't have as much to them.
• When he talks about how people like Dylan and him should be the ones to have that affection.
• I sense the same frustration in statements he makes, like wanting to: "mow down a whole fucking area full of you snotty rich mother fucking high strung godlike attitude having worthless pieces of shit whores."
• or "Thats where a lot of my hate grows from, the fact that I have practically no selfesteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such. therefore people make fun of me... constantly... therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED."
• or "Pity that a lot of the dead will be a waste in someways, like dead hot chicks who were still bitches."
• Or the way Eric responded to Brooks Brown's (a mutual friend of Eric and Dylan) brother, who had told him to stop spending all his time alone on the computer and "get a life", by never forgiving him and refusing to talk to him.
• And what made Eric able to tolerate Dylan? Of all people, lonely meek Dylan, as one of the only people he could be close friends with? And Dylan, him, in return?
• Maybe most of all, how Eric concludes his journal by saying "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things." As if he just dropped all of his front for a second to say what he really felt.

(Eric's drawings of jocks, preps, and wiggers (I'm assuming))

I mean, what can we take as a real reason for being so upset? Should we really believe Eric is so enraged that people might do something like stand in the hallway, blocking him? Or cutting in line? Or even all the constant verbal abuse and "bullying", purely on its own? If a collection of such things really makes someone so upset, isn't it something underneath that, much deeper that's the real pain? Something about those people, maybe subconscious? I mean, what makes a person so utterly detestable, simply for standing oblivious in the hallway? I know that feeling... And I know that what I really hate that person for is the arrogant, greedy, vain kind of person that I first perceive them as. And, if they come off to me as otherwise, then suddenly, as if by magic, their blocking my way in the hall doesn't offend me at all. In fact, even their going to a school to mow down a bunch of kids doesn't make me hate them... not really, not truly. Funny how that works...

I find it interesting how a lot of these trivial little offenses, like cutting in line, mirror the deeper aspects of wrongdoing. Why do we get so hung up on superficial, petty politeness, while overlooking the most rampant personal lives?

Eric contradicts himself many times in his journal, in describing what he hates about people. All the little things they do. I don't have to prove this, he readily admits it several times, even calling himself a hypocrite. There's some much more subtle, intangible hatred, underneath all of this, which he's speaking from, whether consciously or not.

Really, Eric's thoughts are so rampant, if taken at face value, it sounds like Eric would even hate Eric, if he could meet himself.
I think this subtle, enigmatic quality of our human feelings toward each other is very interesting. Like every mask we put on to crusade against each other is an excuse, a lie, because we can't face the truth.

But for whatever else it's worth, Eric also says a number of things which really put me off. Things that very much sound like he's readily willing to be the arrogant, desensitized, shallow, power-hungry whore himself. Things like how hot chicks would be "good fucks", or how he wants to "get laid" with such a casual attitude. Or the fact that he seems to hate looking "weak," as if he would rather look like some jock? Or wanting to kill all the "weak." Or the ridiculously superficial, domination-obsessed competitive attitude he showed in the soccer game he played with Dylan, as well as numerous other instances where he would snap at Dylan over "fucking things up." Or the way he goes around apparently trying to act charming and phony with the girls. Because of all of this, I really don't know how much Eric cared, versus how much he was forced into the life he lived, and therefore I'm suspicious of him.

And maybe this is where people's perception of "insecurity" comes from. Or the fact that Eric described himself as such. Because if you are caught up in the game, trying to play it and win, gain superficial, hedonistic power and hierarchy, then you have placed a value on that. So when you lose, you see yourself as worth less. Dylan never placed such a value on this structure, so he is free from this perception, and opened to the observation that people need love - that the problem has nothing to do with "self esteem," which is a mere side effect, at best. The whole topic of "self esteem" is something I could write a whole other blog on. The topic is such a weapon of manipulation and distraction, concealing the real fault of a whore society. For the longest time, I never even noticed it, or knew what people meant when they spoke about "self esteem," "self confidence," and so on, because I never interpreted things that way. So I just overlooked it. I still don't exactly understand.
I can't really tell how frustrating it is to constantly hear that accusation made against people like Dylan by just about everyone... it just seems to reflect a shallow, instinctual, capitalistic, power hungry approach to life which does not even stop for a moment to consider people's value or love.

I wanted to like Eric, really... but I have to concede now that the more I look at him, and these things, the angrier I get with him. Sometimes he really does seem like he just wishes to be mr. charming, in-control, the one who "wins," dominating all others, and wouldn't care about Dylan at all, if he could just make that work right. If he thinks that simply spouting some vitriolic rants or listening to industrial music makes him different, or special, or otherwise above all those "jocks and bitches," or other school shooters who were "seeking acceptance," then he's missing the whole entire point, and that frustrates me. Who does he think he is exactly...?
If he was indeed so eager to move up the social ladder and abandon someone like Dylan, who was always there for him - making sure he wasn't alone on his birthday and such - then I would never want to be his friend.

I am also bothered by people's preoccupation with Eric... It just seems like Eric was the more outspoken, egoistic, invulnerable type, and therefore gets more gravity and attention, both from fans and critics. Whereas Dylan, showing more vulnerability and meekness, is seen as "weaker" and therefore more follower-like for it. It's not right. Dylan was his own person more than anyone, let alone simply Eric, and we have the many stories of Dylan's extreme self-reliance, straight from childhood, to prove it. Why does he become portrayed as so dependent all of a sudden? Dylan had his own highly-developed internal philosophy, loved and sacrificed more, and tolerated much more of Eric's crap, while continuing to be nice in return, while Eric appeared ready to abandon Dylan just like everyone else. Doesn't Dylan deserve a bit more attention on all these counts?

And truthfully, I always saw Eric's writings as rather schizophrenic, as in all over the place, as well as conflicting. He talks about one thing and you can see how it leads into the next, and the next. I have always felt that when someone has such a "schizophrenic" type of psychology, they must feel somewhat lost in their head, making it easier for another, such as Dylan, to give them some stability and thus lead them. Dylan was a very astute person, capable of achieving whatever he had the motivation towards, and that shows his capabilities. I really never understood the general notion of Eric's supposed coaching or leadership, when studying everything for myself. Dylan is simply not given enough credit for who he was, instead seen as some pathetic, worthless loser. (Although most authors and psychologists will not admit to it that bluntly, instead hiding behind shoddy, impersonal psychological terminology.)

In the end, however, it sounds like Eric was possibly about to get his chance to move up and on, with a girl he was getting to know. It seems, however, that the sense of wrong with the world was just too much, and Eric joined his friend Dylan in ending it all at Columbine, rather than joining the masses who abandoned him.

(Undetonated propane tank bomb and alarm clock detonator from Columbine cafeteria)

"It’s grand for you to fuck us 24/7 for fun, but we can’t have a single minute of harmless playtime, only suffer. It’s dandy for you to rape us, but we’re not allowed to even speak, only be raped? Fuck you."
-Seung-Hui Cho

It is not merely Columbine however. I could write similar essays giving very strong, often much clearer evidence to prove that Seung-Hui Cho, Wellington Oliveira, Kyle Huff, Elliot Rodger, and many others were all talking about the exact same thing as Dylan. And even when there's little evidence there, even when they don't make statements at all, or blame other things, like race or religion, it's almost always the same basic personality as Dylan.. lonely.. eternally alone.. introverted, meek, sensitive. People like Kip Kinkel or Adam Lanza.. so many others... I got eerily good at making predictions about these individuals, once I properly understood Dylan. But first I had to confront and acknowledge my own self. And, well, that's always a continued work...

Of course, on the yet larger scale, my observations in this aren't merely reserved for killers. I find people.. here and there. Eternally saying the same thing.. Marcabru.. Emily Dickinson..

And I'm told that what's being said is delusional. Stupid. In error.
But within myself? I have only ever found that, overwhelmingly, I relate deeply to the words I hear spewing from people like Dylan, Elliot, Cho, Kyle, Marcabru, Emily... It's the exact same words I have heard so many times in my own head, before they ever even opened their mouths. Before I read Kyle's note, or watched Elliot's Youtube video, I took a moment to predict what was going to be said. Really - I did this - took a moment to stop and guess. And then when they said it, chills ran through me. This message, everything that I have been saying, was my original conception of the world, right from early childhood, before I was taught the perverted universal viewpoint... which never made any sense to me. And after finding common thread among all these kids, I'm not just about to turn that off simply because the world scoffs at it...

 I don't really care about learning any more about these killers, however. I don't keep up...
I prefer living in my own world, ignorant to the rest. I get it... I know what it's about.
 It is good to know that there are people who understand, like Dylan, and who refuse to be silenced, but exposing myself to culture is a poison, and overwhelmingly most of what I contact pollutes my soul. There is something truly wrong with humanity.. this ape society we place so much emphasis on, taking so for granted the way it is. It is difficult to express the exact severity of this point. Among our nature is the tendency to look to the established culture around us to tell us what is OK.

..what happens when an individual, like Dylan, confronts themselves, and finds that their heart just cannot agree?

"Emily & the Well of Sadness"

"Marcabru Martyr"

Conclusions..

Why are things this way? How is it possible that things are so backwards and lost? My friend asked me once, how is this much hatred of ours even possible? It's like my disgust for the world is bottomless when I really recognize it, yet the world goes on with a plastic mask of such complacency. All the tiny things that might set me off, yet I know there's something valid beneath them, driving them. Nothing in my experience tells me that what I feel is invalid, that this, everything I've observed, is all some big error on my part. The world would like me to believe that, but I find nothing but the overwhelming sense of validity about it, within myself. Nor can you tell me that what I feel is in the realm of irrational feelings, to be downgraded. Feelings are all we have, and happiness is nothing more than them. It is neither rational nor irrational, merely human. It's not science, it's pure emotion. My human feelings are what they are, and little more can be said. You can't dissect something so abstract, just simply look at it for what it is. If I observe that red is the color red, that's all I know, and all it is, and I'm not making up lies. So why shouldn't I just look inside myself and observe what's there? I trust what I'm feeling, I experience it directly... I should know better than what I'm told by others... secondary information. What kind of fool would I be to yield to that?

So why does society seem to be so far from recognizing the truth? I mean, despite our general ability to be so ingenuitive and astute. How do we remain so lost in other areas, destroying the lives of people like Dylan, and not even being able to recognize it?

On the mundane level? Well..

It just seems like we have an incredible drive towards our instincts, greed. Our desire pushes us. Once we become weak, we are prone to making excuses. Guilt is a powerful force causing us to lie to ourselves, rationalize. So we have this incredible weight tipping the scales of our perception, causing widespread chaos, even while our ability to properly assess things like fixing an engine, computer, or business remains intact.

In other words, we're self-interested.

I also think there's a certain restriction in our minds. I have this battle between the part of myself that wants to understand, to see clearly and truly, this part that feels inspired, idealistic, and another part that blocks it, and constantly wants to dump information. Dylan said "the humanity is blocking" him and notes how he gets stuck "thinking of human things."  Millions of years of pre-programming has constructed our brains, almost as if any thought that goes against the drive of procreation is heresy and restricted to us. The psychology of those that were more resistant to this drive was not passed on to us in the form of genes. Our instincts dope us up and brainwash us so that we cannot even think straight, or about what we truly want to. They push us into ignoring, marginalizing, glorifying, or defending our whore nature. In Susan Klebold's book, she addresses a million different potential factors driving Dylan, but does not seem to even once recognize that Dylan's devotion in the context of other's promiscuity might be a source of upset. And yet it's basically all I can see. ...How is that even possible? Like she never even once considered that his loneliness and need to be included in love is a valid concern, at all? It makes me angry just thinking about.. like no way anyone can be that unfeeling, that evil. Maybe people like Dylan have a slightly more developed advanced-thinking part of their mind to combat all this influence, and that's why some people are different, while others remain blind? Who knows. It would add up to all those stories from Dylan's childhood of his abilities mixing puzzles together and such, his various talents and skills. What if there really is a subtle new evolution of human in people like Dylan, similar to Homo Sapien vs. Neanderthal? Perhaps we should not assume everyone's mind is basically the same, and I should not assume my experience is the same as others. Dylan does often talk about how different he feels, his "overdeveloped" mind..

All I know is that it has driven me absolutely insane trying to understand why so, so many people seem to have no understanding, no awareness, of this, at all.

"Too Pure For This World"

On the spiritual level?

It seems like everything that has a mundane explanation, has a deeper side as well.

But I really don't know. That would be just like asking why are we so fallen? All I know is that the failure to love feels profound. I can only wonder, what instinct could have put such a fight in me? And we cover over this deep wrong with our jokes and marginalization of the problem.. in fact we do this endlessly on TV...

And all that attitude seems so sick to me... Manipulative, brainwashing. And then there's the endless barrage of sexual rhetoric and propaganda and lies from all the hip, useless people. Is it a wonder we always seem to feel so preyed on?

No wonder we're stuck with this problem. How can any ordinary person be expected to cope and see through so much? Such a thick, relentless, and constant culture of psychological tactics? We have to develop an ability to confront our selves, and not shy away from what we find, no matter what, if we have any hope of countering such a gargantuan machine. To reach for Dylan's "self awareness."

And there's not really hope. I know now what the problem is, and how to fix it. But there's nothing I can truly do, against such a machine, and even if I could, it wouldn't repair the damage.

Does that mean we just give up, and we can excuse all of this? Absolutely not... What is wrong is wrong. It is wrong, and cannot be otherwise. And this society we live in is wrong because it dehumanizes the best part of people. It is wrong because even if everyone submitted to it, there would always be a loser, the nature of the competition. It is literally a hierarchy of power.

Understand that as long as we fail to live up to Dylan's pure love, as long as we abandon him, we can't excuse it. We are weak, human and failed, and that's all. We can't just give up, downgrade everything and accept it as it is. Why? Because this culture is completely unsustainable. As long as we fail to love, there will always be problems. Not that I care, but do you want this war forever? You'd better get used to it, because it's not just going away. You can waste all the time you want trying to fix the problem from the outside in, trying to rearrange things without actually addressing the foundation, making up new forms of governments to manage people, making up new rules and psychological profiles and theories and technologies and forms of entertainment, but the problem will never go away.. I promise it won't... We haven't learned anything... Nothing.

(March 1999; Eric in hat, Dylan at top - beneath him is Zach)

But it's here, and it's all broken beyond repair. So I only ask myself, what do I do now?

I wish I could offer more of an answer for this final point. To anyone that understands me. And for myself. That I could console you with something, to tell you that it's going to be alright.
The words of Seung-Hui come to mind.. "All of you who have went through what I went through, all of you who have felt what I have felt in my life, all of you who have suffered the wrath of these Democratic Terrorists, all of you who have been beaten, humiliated, and crucified ... Brothers and Sisters you’re in my heart. In life and death and spirit. We’ll soon be together."
I'd like that, Cho.. I wish I could reach through the barriers of time & space and give you - all of you, who ever dared to love the way Dylan did - the love you deserve back. I wish I could be stronger. I wish I could be the pure love that Dylan writes about and aspires to. To be completely rid of this weak humanity, to stand as a beacon of comforting love & devotion to all those who have been deprived of it. I wish I could destroy the sickness of a lack of love that preys on the minds of the meek in culture, media & social groups, universally and constantly, so that none of you have to face a single second more of it. Pretending to yourself to tolerate it... while it slowly rapes and destroys you.

Understand this: you deserved love, a real, true, pure & sacred love, and that's the one thing this world will never give you. You went through a hell and still no end in sight, and the one thing that could have made it all OK is to know that love is waiting for you at the end. We could have done so much as humans, why did we choose to destroy love? That's the one fucking thing we needed, and you monsters completely raped it all to hell. How can that ever be forgiven? How can that be tolerated?

Dylan, if I know you are out there, I know the world never for one second recognized nor appreciated the love you gave, but dammit - I do, I won't be blind, your love does not go unnoticed and unappreciated. Yours and anyone else's - every single piece of the lonely, unassuming love you give, it gives me back a small piece of the love that this fucking worthless, gluttonous world has stolen from me... It gives me the strength to love in return... It makes me wish you were the only kind of human that existed. You should be. I'm overwhelmed with the love I wish I could give you, so much that I'm afraid to attempt description.

I will resist forever - even though my resistance is futility - because those of you who can hear me deserve that fight. But somehow I always remain with the intuition that somehow, everything will be ok. Some eventual peace.. somewhere. And that I can transcend... to not have my peace controlled by the whims of a chaotic existence. Or at the very least know that if I'm ever going to have any true peace, it can only come from someplace beyond and not this world, by definition. If it is merely granted as this existence callously dictates, then it has no real meaning, and I don't want that. I still don't know if there's any true hope or end, but at moments like these, the love I feel overwhelms me with something so far beyond this world. For a moment, I feel like I am floating, I feel like I am pure and free. Thank you Dylan, for everything you had to say. I hear you so loud and clear it's almost deafening.

(above: pipe bomb from Dylan's bedroom, below: writing from his dayplanner)