Sick of it all

I'm at the point now where I am sick of violence. I know, that sounds pretentious, but it's true. I don't want to see it, in movies, or news, or whatever. I don't want to hear about it.

I watched the trailer for this new Stallone thing, Bullet to the Head,, and it made me extremely angry. I know, it's Stallone, so it's going to be formulaic, with plenty of gratutuious violence and wooden acting, but this time, after all that's happened recently, I thought it was appalling. Sly's not a bad person, from what I understand, and he's a lot smarter than many people think, but this is extraordinarily bad timing. The film where the hero barges in and starts shooting and tosses off the death of a human being--granted, a stock, one-dimensional human being who was Evil--with a semihumrous quip, is now dead. Or, if not dead, in a coma.

People want to see these things as a distraction. Unfortunately, recent events have made what makes many of them so distracting relevant to many of us. They are no longer distracting, they are alarming.

Over the past few weeks I've been in this place, emotionally, where I just couldn't feel much of anything. I finally realized I've felt this way since just before xmas, since Newtown.

The pain those people must feel is inconceivable. All-consuming. There are no words to describe what the victims of this terrible thing are going through. I know what I feel when I think about it is nothing compared to theirs, but it's still considerable, and difficult for me to deal with.

Now, there are these idiots who are saying that it never happened. They think the whole thing is an elaborate hoax to promote an anti-gun agenda--that the people we see on our TV, the survivors, the parents, the first responders, the spouses and brothers and sisters--are all actors, playing a role to help the President move forward with his evil plan to take all our guns and declare martial law.

These people are actually harassing the survivors of this horrible tragedy. So, on top of the horror and agony they are experiencing, they are being told by these people that the events that have changed their lives forever didn't actually occur. That the deaths of the school faculty and the children didn't happen.

I don't know how they feel about this. I can't bring myself to look into it. I can't watch the videos these people make to present their "evidence" that it was a conspiracy. Even thinking about this makes me almost incandescent with rage.

There is no place in the world for these people. They are a waste of any resources they consume.

I can't help anyone in Newtown deal with their grief and pain, though I wish I could. Arguing with the crazies isn't going to help anything, either--there is no way to talk them out of their delusions that doesn't also involve medication.

Still, I need to do something--I simply can't handle the grief and the rage. I can't let myself experience it, except in small doses. But this is making it impossible for me to write--it's been getting more and more difficult, and now it's completely shut off. I just can't bear the thought of terrible things happening to people, of drama, of violence happening . . . still, that's what it takes to make a story--any story. A story with no drama isn't a story. Nobody wants to read that. Not even me. Not even if I wrote it.

So, I went out and bought some art supplies--pencils, pens, sketch pads, stuff like that. Plus a calligraphy set. I haven't done any serious drawing since I was a kid--I was only moderately talented at it, then, and I doubt my efforts will produce anything I'll want to show anyone. I've never tried calligraphy.

The whole point of this is it gives me something to focus on, something that'll require a lot of concentration.. It'll be exercising that creative part of me in a new way. And, hopefully,, it'll help me get myself back on track, so I can start writing stuff that doesn't suck.

Sorry. I know I sort of rambled all over the place, but I hope this makes sense.