I wonder if I am too abstract in saying this

It must really feel terrible for the Tech community to know that such a thing happened on their own campus–where, I would imagine, they felt safe and comfortable with everybody around them.
There’s often a lot of fingerpointing and compulsive preventive-measure-taking in the aftermath of calamities like this. While it’s important to understand how things happen and whether they could have been avoided, I hope this doesn’t lead to an environment that is more fearful than necessary. I hope people don’t spend their time and energy trying to prevent all terrible things in all arenas of their lives. There are things we cannot control in life–we cannot undo the loss of thirty three lives in the middle of campus–but that shouldn’t win over us and make us cower. Some forms of vulnerability are a necessary part of human life.

I cannot imagine what kind of a reality that student lived in; but mental and emotional illness are arguably the scariest things in the world. To have coped with that for twenty three years was admirable. It is so sad that it had to be this way.

~ by samhitha on May 13, 2007.