Is there an Element of Cowardice in all Violence?

The more I hear about the Navy Yard guy the more I'm reminded of my own trials coming home from war.

Not many people know this but there was a time when I was spending a third of my energy preparing for the apocalypse.

I got home in 2007, right after that the financial crisis hit and my faith in the powers that be dropped. I was certain social disorder and complete economic meltdown were to follow.

So, mostly in secret, I started to prepare.

First I began reading anything and everything I could find on collapse.

Kustler
Orlov
Baker

I reveled in their predictions and felt wonderfully purpose filled.

Part of me wanted things to fall about.

All the bullshit, all the lying, F'it lets start over......clean slate.

I wanted violence because I was trained for violence. I wanted violence because I hated the amount of rage I felt when I walked into a mall and saw how little people "understood" about how much they had.

I got so obsessive about this impending collapse that I started to believe anything and everything I read.

-Chem Trails from airplanes dousing the country to keep populations docile.
-Homeland Security Concentration camps in West Virginia.

The greater the conspiracy the greater the chance it was all coming to an end. The sooner the end the sooner I could finally be who I was trained to be.

It's odd to me now that it was so easy for me to believe then. The fact of the matter is that it was easier for me to confront the demons outside myself than it was for me to confront the ones within.

Navy Yard guy apparently had problems with violence. Shot out a tire during an argument. Shot a hole in the ceiling of a neighbor who bothered him. Crazy right?

Not to me.

I've punched holes in walls over arguments with neighbors. I've elbowed car windows because the physical pain was easier to deal with than the rage in my mind.

Now, I never shot or killed anybody, but what do you think preparing for the coming apocalypse involved?

I know you Navy Yard Guy, but unlike you I turned inward and confronted things far scarier and debilitating that chem trails and micro waves. I confronted and still confront my demons.

I took me a ton of courage to realize that implicit to being trained to kill is the cultivation of a monster.

I had no clue how to Armor Down after war so that monster ran free.

I was lucky to have family, friends, and the where with all to eventually do something about it.

In past blogs I've written about divinity and soul, these words have a lot of happy light connotations......but let me just say that because I believe divinity and soul are infinite, and infinitely a part of me, I accept the fact that they also include shadow.

Darkness
Rage
Hate
Violence

Just a whiff makes the monsters roar.

I heard Matt Lauer ask some authority figure on the Today Show this morning how someone could do such a horrible thing.....

I left before I heard the answer.....but here's what I think:

Some people have the courage to face the darkness
and others
resort to violence.