Eric's core belief - "not to go down the stream of life"

I decided to bring this up for several reasons. First, I think this is a very important part of who Eric was and very few people notice it and pick up on this from his journal. Second, because Eric for most people seems to be much harder to make sense of of than Dylan and Eric's thought patterns seem to be moe alient to most than Dylan's.

Here is the issue:

Eric was very big on making sure people know that the massacre was his decision and he very much stressed that fact. He strongly felt he needs to tell people that he is not being a pawn of some external force. To quote him:

Eric Harris wrote:

I will choose to kill and damage as much as nature allows me to so take that. fuck you, and eat napalm + lead! HA! only Nature can stop me. I know I could get shot by a cop after only killing a single person, but hey guess the fuck WHAT! I chose to kill that one person so get over it! Its MY fault! not my parents, not my brothers, not my friends, not my favorite bands, not computer games, not the media. IT is MINE!

Eric seems to have been convinced that he could have a wonderfull normal everday life if he ever wanted, but instead he chose to go on with the massacre becuase of his own inner beliefs. Remember Eric also wrote this:

Eric Harris wrote:

you dont take advantage of your capabilites given to you at birth. you just drop them and hop onto the boat and headdown the stream of life with all the other fuckers of your type. well god damit I wont be a part of it! I have thought to much, realized to much, found out to much, and I am to self aware to just stop what I am thinking and go back to society because what I do and think isnt "right" or "morally accepted" NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts

Eric obviously had a lot of disdain for everyday life and how normal society works. Eric very strongly stressed that he does not want to be a part of it and that is his free and thought-out decision. People often miss this part, but imho this was a central belief behind all of Eric's actions.

I think this is the key: most find it hard to understand how deep was Eric's dissatisfaction with normal, everyday, mundae, day-by-day life. this is such an alien concept to people, that I've even heard professional psychologists who talked about Eric summing this up and then stating that they can't get around it or that it might be some sort of confusing peter Pan syndrom subset.

This feels alien, but this is at the core of what Eric believed in - withouth this element he would never be part of NBK, without understanding this part we will not understand Eric's role in the shooting.

During the year and a couple of months before 4-20, Eric was under the most exacting scrutiny in his life. The van break-in of late January 1998 led to frequent appointments with a psychologist as well as his diversion counselor. Not to mention likely increased attention from his parents. His journal entries were written during this time. I haven't gone back to confirm this, but my impression of the timeline is that his entry about not "betraying" his thoughts may have been prompted by a visit to the psychologist.

Several writers have speculated that a huge motivator of the mass shooting was the humiliation as a result of getting caught and punished for the "January incident."

I agree with your points, Sabratha, although I'm not so sure Eric felt he could succeed in the everyday world. You've probably heard that humorous quote about "if nothing else, you can serve as a bad example." I tend to think that Eric thought that being a part of "normal society" would never bring him the fame and respect that he craved. So he chucked it all, and became a villain, a bad example.  

The quote you pulled where he considers what it would be like to "go back to society" is a most interesting one. To his diversion counselors, psychologist, boss at Blackjack, his teachers, the Marine recruiter, perhaps his parents, he was outwardly seeking and generally getting their approval, even praise. Outwardly, he was conforming to society. (Though many of his peers were aware of his violent nature and weren't that surprised when he was ID'd as a shooter.) Inwardly, he was seething, plotting revenge. In this regard, he was even more extreme than Dylan, who had a "f*ck you" attitude toward just about everyone who had authority over him. It occurs to me that maybe different parenting styles encouraged Eric to conform, outwardly at least, while Dylan was given permission to express himself.

blue02 wrote:

I agree with your points, Sabratha, although I'm not so sure Eric felt he could succeed in the everyday world. You've probably heard that humorous quote about "if nothing else, you can serve as a bad example." I tend to think that Eric thought that being a part of "normal society" would never bring him the fame and respect that he craved. So he chucked it all, and became a villain, a bad example.

I think fame, hile a factor, was a secondary thing. Eric hated everyday life and wanted a way out. Then Dylan told him about his ideas and Eric seen that as the way out he was looking for.

blue02 wrote:

The quote you pulled where he considers what it would be like to "go back to society" is a most interesting one. To his diversion counselors, psychologist, boss at Blackjack, his teachers, the Marine recruiter, perhaps his parents, he was outwardly seeking and generally getting their approval, even praise. Outwardly, he was conforming to society. (Though many of his peers were aware of his violent nature and weren't that surprised when he was ID'd as a shooter.) Inwardly, he was seething, plotting revenge. In this regard, he was even more extreme than Dylan, who had a "f*ck you" attitude toward just about everyone who had authority over him. It occurs to me that maybe different parenting styles encouraged Eric to conform, outwardly at least, while Dylan was given permission to express himself.

Frankly, I think its more a personality trait than parental influence. People with psychopathic tendencies tend to be suspicious and even paranoid, but at the same time good actorsa and good liars. I think Eric was simply both moe concerned about putting up a good smoke screen as well as a better actor than Dylan was.

I should have explained my comment about parenting a little better. I'm not arguing nurture over nature. As far as I know, both Eric and Dylan were biological children of their parents. So they already had a set of characteristics that probably were similar to their parents. And then those values were reinforced by the family culture.

I'm suggesting that for most of his life, Eric did not rebel against his parents' values of following rules, respect for authority, etc. I don't think this was fake. Whether you call it personality (nature) or instilled values (nurture) Eric conformed to rules far more than Dylan did. In his last two years, something began to fall apart for him, and unlike most adolescents who may dabble in rebellion, he never recovered from it.

I believe Eric's dissatisfaction with everyday life in large part stemmed from his own inner misery and conviction that people like him would always get the short end of the stick in life. Once you feel like a victim of injustices , multiple examples of it can be seen just by looking all around you. Once you get in that mindset, its not hard to find.
I have to ask myself if Eric and Rocky Hoffschneider had magically switched places would Eric still feel the same after a while of living such a life?

That being said, Eric had some interesting ideas and philosophies . I see him and Dylan as both deeper thinkers than many teenagers. I don't like or agree with all his ideas but they are interesting.
I do like his ideas on individualism although I realize he must have absorbed some of it from the reading he did, But then we all do that.
Absorb thoughts and ideas from others, run them through the prisms of our lives and experiences and come out with something of our own.

PaintItBlack wrote:

I believe Eric's dissatisfaction with everyday life in large part stemmed from his own inner misery and conviction that people like him would always get the short end of the stick in life. Once you feel like a victim of injustices , multiple examples of it can be seen just by looking all around you. Once you get in that mindset, its not hard to find.

Issue is, Eric does not see himself that way and does not express this belief in his writings, nor is this mentioned by anyone as being on the basement tapes. Eric expresses something entirely different.

I think there is a general misunderstanding of Eric, because his ideas are alien to the experiences of most other people.

Yes, Eric rants about not getting the respect he needs or that he wants to get laid - these are the same things that milions of other teenagres write everyday about, this is the part of Eric that's common to a lot of people and generally doesn't need further comment.

But then Eric goes in in great depth about his fundamental disagreements and dissatisfaction with things that most people find perfectly normal, pleasant and acceptable. This goes right down to the core - jobs, everyday life - this is precisely what Eric hated. You say that if Eric had a "better mundane life" he might have been happy, I would entirely disagree and Eric himself strongly disagrees in his writings. Here is a quote from his website:

Eric Harris wrote on his website: wrote:

most of you fuckheads out there in society, going to your everyday fucking jobs and doing your everyday routine shitty things, i say fuck you and die.

That's the point: The vast majority of people are happy if they get to do pleasant "everday routine things". Eric knew this and commented on it. For Eric routine everyday things are "shitty" inherently.
Here's a different quote from his journal:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

ever wonder why we go to school? besides getting a so called education. its not to obvious to most of you stupid fucks but for these who think a little more and deeper you should realize it. its societies way of turning all the young people into good little robots and factory workers thats why we sit in desks in rows and go by bell schedules, to get prepared for the real world cause "thats what its like". well god damit no it isnt! one thing that seperates us from other animals is the fact that we can carry on actual thoughts. so why don't we? people go on day by day. rutine shit.

Yep, and then he goes into what I quoted before:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

I bet most of you fuckers cant even think that deep, so that is why you must die. how dare you think that I and you are part of the same species when we are sooooooo different. you arent human you are a Robot. you dont take advantage of your capabilites given to you at birth. you just drop them and hop onto the boat and headdown the stream of life with all the other fuckers of your type. well god damit I wont be a part of it! I have thought to much, realized to much, found out to much, and I am to self aware to just stop what I am thinking and go back to society because what I do and think isnt "right" or "morally accepted" NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!

Then we have this:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

The human race sucks. human nature is smuthered out by society, jobs, and work and school. instincts are deleted by laws. I see people say things that contradict themselves, or people that dont take any advantage to the gift of human life. they waste their minds on memorizing the stats of every college basketball player or how many words should be an a report when they should be using their brain on more important things. (...) Society may not realize what is happening but I have; you go to school, to get used to studying and learning how youre "supposed to" so that drains or filters out a little bit of human nature. but thats after your parents taught you whats right and wrong even though you may think differently, you still must to have more of your human nature blown out of your ass. society trys to make everyone act the same by burying all human nature and instincts. Thats what school, laws, jobs, and parents do If they realize it or not and them, the few who stick to their natural instincts are casted out as psychos or lunatics or strangers or just plain different. crazy, strange, weird, wild, these words are not bad or degrading.. if humans were let to live how we would naturaly it would be chaos and anarchy and the human race wouldnt probably last that long, but hey guess what, thats how its supposed to be!!!!! society and goverments are only created to have order and calmness, which is exactly the opposite of pure human nature. take away all your laws and morals and just see what you can do. if the goverment was one entity it would be thinking "hey, lets make some order here and calm these crazy fucks down so we can be constructive and fight other goverments in our own little so called self created "civilizied world" and get rid of all those damn insticts everyone has" well shit I'm to tired wright anymor tonight, so until next time, fuck you all!

As you see, these themes are not something he wrote once mind you, he comes back to this theme on his website, in his journal, each statement written with a huge time lapse in between. If this is not Eric's core belief, I don't know what is.

PaintItBlack wrote:

This raises a question for me. If Eric's life could have been going better for him, if he had a few steady girlfriends, if he had felt more liked and respected by others, why would he have done this?

You say that if Eric had a "better mundane life" he might have been happy, I would entirely disagree and Eric himself strongly disagrees in his writings. I belive his reply to you would be: "NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!"

This is what I think we need to concentrate on: things that make Eric unique, not things he has in common with milions of other students and teenagers. Columbine was a rare and unique act and it is best understood by looking at rare and unique personality traits and beliefs of the shooters. Eric's dissatisfaction is with "everyday routine shitty things" and going down " the stream of life" and the "so called self created civilizied world".

These issues do not bother the vast majority of people at all. But they did bother Eric immensly and I think we need to recognize this.

There's one question that's been on my mind for years and I know it's been discussed on here a few times with decent answers brought up by the community...

... that question is, why did they satisfy themselves with such a low kill count? Clearly, from their writings, getting the bloodiest "NBK" possible for posterity & the history books was very important to them.

The reason I am bringing this up in this one thread is that Eric's quote in the OP struck me, because he really did not act like that on 4/20 at all.

Quote :

I will choose to kill and damage as much as nature allows me to so take that. fuck you, and eat napalm + lead! HA! only Nature can stop me.

IMO, a broken nose, low ammo, and the end of the adrenaline rush isn't "Nature" stepping in to put a definite end to NBK. He decided to leave tons of easy kills on the table.

Ok. I'm not going to really dispute all this too much. But I feel like I understand Eric well. I do not feel like I misunderstand him at all. For the most part we just see him differently. And that's perfectly ok. People have different viewpoints and they have valid reasons for the way they see and comprehend things. I've been in this for a lot of years also so I feel that I'm not uninformed about him and what happened. Nobody here is unless they are new to the subject. A lot of his experiences actually aren't alien to me. Hating people, hating the world and how it operates, Wanting to do what he did are all things I've been through and experienced in my past.
Yes, I know Eric said and wrote those things but no person is just one thing or feels one way all the time. He had another side to him too.
I think he was somewhat of a complex person.
Eric also wrote an entry towards the end in which he expressed his hurt and bitterness about people not calling him , not inviting him to do things. He expressed the same on the basement tapes about girls not calling him back and how bad that made him feel.
Those are very ordinary , mundane things to feel and say.
Whatever else Eric may have been as a person , underneath I see a young, intelligent, sensitive teenager who felt things deeply and could be and was hurt.
Just my perspective and my beliefs. As always anyone is free to agree or disagree.

Sabratha wrote:

PaintItBlack wrote:

I believe Eric's dissatisfaction with everyday life in large part stemmed from his own inner misery and conviction that people like him would always get the short end of the stick in life. Once you feel like a victim of injustices , multiple examples of it can be seen just by looking all around you. Once you get in that mindset, its not hard to find.

Issue is, Eric does not see himself that way and does not express this belief in his writings, nor is this mentioned by anyone as being on the basement tapes. Eric expresses something entirely different.

I think there is a general misunderstanding of Eric, because his ideas are alien to the experiences of most other people.

Yes, Eric rants about not getting the respect he needs or that he wants to get laid - these are the same things that milions of other teenagres write everyday about, this is the part of Eric that's common to a lot of people and generally doesn't need further comment.

But then Eric goes in in great depth about his fundamental disagreements and dissatisfaction with things that most people find perfectly normal, pleasant and acceptable. This goes right down to the core - jobs, everyday life - this is precisely what Eric hated. You say that if Eric had a "better mundane life" he might have been happy, I would entirely disagree and Eric himself strongly disagrees in his writings. Here is a quote from his website:

Eric Harris wrote on his website: wrote:

most of you fuckheads out there in society, going to your everyday fucking jobs and doing your everyday routine shitty things, i say fuck you and die.

That's the point: The vast majority of people are happy if they get to do pleasant "everday routine things". Eric knew this and commented on it. For Eric routine everyday things are "shitty" inherently.
Here's a different quote from his journal:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

ever wonder why we go to school? besides getting a so called education. its not to obvious to most of you stupid fucks but for these who think a little more and deeper you should realize it. its societies way of turning all the young people into good little robots and factory workers thats why we sit in desks in rows and go by bell schedules, to get prepared for the real world cause "thats what its like". well god damit no it isnt! one thing that seperates us from other animals is the fact that we can carry on actual thoughts. so why don't we? people go on day by day. rutine shit.

Yep, and then he goes into what I quoted before:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

I bet most of you fuckers cant even think that deep, so that is why you must die. how dare you think that I and you are part of the same species when we are sooooooo different. you arent human you are a Robot. you dont take advantage of your capabilites given to you at birth. you just drop them and hop onto the boat and headdown the stream of life with all the other fuckers of your type. well god damit I wont be a part of it! I have thought to much, realized to much, found out to much, and I am to self aware to just stop what I am thinking and go back to society because what I do and think isnt "right" or "morally accepted" NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!

Then we have this:

Eric Harris's journal: wrote:

The human race sucks. human nature is smuthered out by society, jobs, and work and school. instincts are deleted by laws. I see people say things that contradict themselves, or people that dont take any advantage to the gift of human life. they waste their minds on memorizing the stats of every college basketball player or how many words should be an a report when they should be using their brain on more important things. (...) Society may not realize what is happening but I have; you go to school, to get used to studying and learning how youre "supposed to" so that drains or filters out a little bit of human nature. but thats after your parents taught you whats right and wrong even though you may think differently, you still must to have more of your human nature blown out of your ass. society trys to make everyone act the same by burying all human nature and instincts. Thats what school, laws, jobs, and parents do If they realize it or not and them, the few who stick to their natural instincts are casted out as psychos or lunatics or strangers or just plain different. crazy, strange, weird, wild, these words are not bad or degrading.. if humans were let to live how we would naturaly it would be chaos and anarchy and the human race wouldnt probably last that long, but hey guess what, thats how its supposed to be!!!!! society and goverments are only created to have order and calmness, which is exactly the opposite of pure human nature. take away all your laws and morals and just see what you can do. if the goverment was one entity it would be thinking "hey, lets make some order here and calm these crazy fucks down so we can be constructive and fight other goverments in our own little so called self created "civilizied world" and get rid of all those damn insticts everyone has" well shit I'm to tired wright anymor tonight, so until next time, fuck you all!

As you see, these themes are not something he wrote once mind you, he comes back to this theme on his website, in his journal, each statement written with a huge time lapse in between. If this is not Eric's core belief, I don't know what is.

PaintItBlack wrote:

This raises a question for me. If Eric's life could have been going better for him, if he had a few steady girlfriends, if he had felt more liked and respected by others, why would he have done this?

You say that if Eric had a "better mundane life" he might have been happy, I would entirely disagree and Eric himself strongly disagrees in his writings. I belive his reply to you would be: "NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!"

This is what I think we need to concentrate on: things that make Eric unique, not things he has in common with milions of other students and teenagers. Columbine was a rare and unique act and it is best understood by looking at rare and unique personality traits and beliefs of the shooters. Eric's dissatisfaction is with "everyday routine shitty things" and going down " the stream of life" and the "so called self created civilizied world".

These issues do not bother the vast majority of people at all. But they did bother Eric immensly and I think we need to recognize this.

lio45 wrote:

There's one question that's been on my mind for years and I know it's been discussed on here a few times with decent answers brought up by the community...

... that question is, why did they satisfy themselves with such a low kill count? Clearly, from their writings, getting the bloodiest "NBK" possible for posterity & the history books was very important to them.

Well, the first and obvious reason was that columbine was to be a bombing first and foremost, a shooting later. Eric and Dylan were correct in their calculations, if they managed to explode the cafeterian bombs properly IRA-style, then by the accounts of police bomb experts everyone in the cafeteria would be either dead, or gravely wounded. On top of that, they made an assessment that the propane bombs if used correctly would likley have brought the upper floor crashing down on the cafeteria, ausing further potential injuries to the people in the cafeteria and tghose in the rooms above it.

The good thing is that Eric and Dylan botchd the job and the bombs falied to detonate. What later happened during teh shooting was Dylan who trew a pipe bomb at the propane bombs, but this only made the propane from one of the tanks start to burn, but not caused an actual explosion either.

I think they simply had no plan B in place. When the bombs failed to go off, they just went in shooting randomly. They spent a lot of time shooting at Gardiner and later at the police from long range. They shot at inanimate objectsin the corridor. When they first came down to the cafeteria, there were actually some kids hiding in the room, behind tables etc. Neithe rDylan or Eric tried to engage them.

My point is: when their bomb plan failed, they started to act randomly, on a whil, approached the rooms of a case-by-case basis. They shot a lot of people in the library, but nobody at the cafeteria even if there were still people there.

PaintItBlack wrote:

Yes, I know Eric said and wrote those things but no person is just one thing or feels one way all the time. He had another side to him too.
I think he was somewhat of a complex person.
Eric also wrote an entry towards the end in which he expressed his hurt and bitterness about people not calling him , not inviting him to do things. He expressed the same on the basement tapes about girls not calling him back and how bad that made him feel.
Those are very ordinary , mundane things to feel and say.

Entirely agree. Despite sensationalist media reporting, I can say with some certainty that even people who are clearly diagnosed with AsPD, Hare-style Psychopathy or Cleckley-style psychopathy are not entirely dissimilar from their peers in a lot of ways.

As surprising that it may sound to some non-psychologists, antisocial spectum disorders are often among the least debilitating of mental disorders as far as the patient goes. Robert Hare's assessment (and he has decades of excperience wrking with anisocial spectrum patients in USA and Canada, including prison inmates) is that a huge percentage of psychopaths go through life entirely undiagnosed and often without going to prison or commiting any serious crime that was detected. There's a reason why most friends family and co-workers of diagnosed psychopaths react with: "Really? I never thought there is anything crazy about that guy".

Eric in fact had a huge amount of traits and issues common with his peers. Not being respected among the cool kids. Being left out of the good parts of HS life. Not having a girl. Not getting his dream job (although it emains unclear if Eric fianlly leaned that the Marines dropped him or not, I tend to assume not) etc.

My point here was simply to say that in researching columbine, we should put more attention to looking at the traits that are rare, the beliefs that are not common to the maority of teenagers. The columbine attack was not something most teenagers would ever contemplate seriously.

Sabratha wrote:

lio45 wrote:

There's one question that's been on my mind for years and I know it's been discussed on here a few times with decent answers brought up by the community...

... that question is, why did they satisfy themselves with such a low kill count? Clearly, from their writings, getting the bloodiest "NBK" possible for posterity & the history books was very important to them.

Well, the first and obvious reason was that columbine was to be a bombing first and foremost, a shooting later. Eric and Dylan were correct in their calculations, if they managed to explode the cafeterian bombs properly IRA-style, then by the accounts of police bomb experts everyone in the cafeteria would be either dead, or gravely wounded. On top of that, they made an assessment that the propane bombs if used correctly would likley have brought the upper floor crashing down on the cafeteria, ausing further potential injuries to the people in the cafeteria and tghose in the rooms above it.

The good thing is that Eric and Dylan botchd the job and the bombs falied to detonate. What later happened during teh shooting was Dylan who trew a pipe bomb at the propane bombs, but this only made the propane from one of the tanks start to burn, but not caused an actual explosion either.

I think they simply had no plan B in place. When the bombs failed to go off, they just went in shooting randomly. They spent a lot of time shooting at Gardiner and later at the police from long range. They shot at inanimate objectsin the corridor. When they first came down to the cafeteria, there were actually some kids hiding in the room, behind tables etc. Neithe rDylan or Eric tried to engage them.

My point is: when their bomb plan failed, they started to act randomly, on a whil, approached the rooms of a case-by-case basis. They shot a lot of people in the library, but nobody at the cafeteria even if there were still people there.

A lot of students pretended to be dead also, maybe Eric and Dylan thought they had many more victims than they really had.

I'm glad someone brought this up. I think you are absolutely right that Columbine needs to be looked at from the angle of what's unique about it & E & D. The commonalities are probably not where you'll find the answers, if they are to be found. Everyone's free to have their opinion of course, but I personally agree with "I think this is the key: most find it hard to understand how deep was Eric's dissatisfaction with normal, everyday, mundae, day-by-day life." & " these themes are not something he wrote once mind you, he comes back to this theme on his website, in his journal, each statement written with a huge time lapse in between."

I believe that Eric (& Dylan, & many suicidal people)'s contempt for ordinary life surpassed 'oh, I just had a bad day/week/year,' 'somebody said something mean to me,' 'I don't like the way I look today.' I don't think it's something they would have just gotten over, at least not w/o quite a bit of help. I'm not saying "saving" them would have been impossible, but either the world would have had to change or their way of thinking, on a deep level.

I think, in a reasonable attempt to understand someone, we analyze every little word they say. Women, too (& no, I'm not knocking women, as I am female) tend to read into things more (i.e. 'what did my crush mean when he said blah blah?), when perhaps sometimes we should step back & take things as they are. Eric says straightforward "THIS is my goal, THIS is what I'm motivated for..." Was there hurt lurking underneath that statement? Most likely, because hurt & anger tend to go hand in hand. Still, I think he sincerely meant what he said. He was well aware there were other options out there (as was Dylan; to say otherwise insults their intelligence imo), but he instead chose to focus on this.

Now one can say he was just particularly mad when he said this, but, he does come back to this theme time & time again: "how dare you think that I and you are part of the same species when we are sooooooo different. you arent human you are a Robot. you dont take advantage of your capabilites given to you at birth. you just drop them and hop onto the boat and headdown the stream of life with all the other fuckers of your type. well god damit I wont be a part of it! I have thought to much, realized to much, found out to much, and I am to self aware to just stop what I am thinking and go back to society because what I do and think isnt "right" or "morally accepted" NO, NO, NO GOD FUCKING DAMIT NO!I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts." I think this pretty well sums it up--he's evolved & he ain't turnin' back now.

Regarding the Marines:  "that argument on the 22nd was a real bitch, but I think I should have won a fucking oscar. I even quoted a few movies, remember 'what the hell am I gonna do now man?! what am I gonna do!?' thats good ole Hudson from aliens. Sounded good too. and hey goddamnit I would have been a fucking great marine, It would have given me a reason to do good." So, basically, his "devastation" at not making the Marines was an act. Probably so was him mentioning it to Mark Manes the evening before the masscare.

"everything is so corrupt and so filled with opinions little and points of view and peoples' own little agendas and shedules. this isnt a world anymore, its H.O.E. and [no]one knows it. self awareness is a wonderful thing. I know I will die soon, so will you and everyone else. maybe will we be lucky and a comet will smash us back to day 1.
society trys to make everyone act the same by burying all human nature and instincts. Thats what school, laws, jobs, and parents do." -- Just some more examples of how deep this core belief ran.

" Thats where a lot of my hate grows from, the fact that I have practically no self-esteem, 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." -- I realize this is the part where people think well, here's his main problem, just fix this. The thing is, self-esteem comes from the self, from within. One can throw a bunch of compliments his way and, as with us all, it would probably boost his self-esteem for a while. Finding a partner would have went a long way, I'm sure. But we all know it isn't always "happily ever after" just because you met someone. My point is: he would have to start feeling better about himself, in his mind, heart, & soul.

myhumanity-o wrote:

Regarding the Marines:  "that argument on the 22nd was a real bitch, but I think I should have won a fucking oscar. I even quoted a few movies, remember 'what the hell am I gonna do now man?! what am I gonna do!?' thats good ole Hudson from aliens. Sounded good too. and hey goddamnit I would have been a fucking great marine, It would have given me a reason to do good." So, basically, his "devastation" at not making the Marines was an act. Probably so was him mentioning it to Mark Manes the evening before the masscare.

I think he was referring to an argument with Bob Kirgis concerning alcohol. Not the Marines. The boss ratted him out to his parents about a hidden flask of whiskey or something. He didn't want to see Eric go down the same road he chose - which was alcoholism.

IIRC, the quote about the Marines was in reaction of acquiring the guns and being past the point of no return. As in, ''well i'm gonna die now, but I would have been a great Marine had I lived''.

Guess it was the "And hey goddamnit I would have been a fucking great marine" immediately afterwards that was throwing me off ;)

MegaloX wrote:

myhumanity-o wrote:

Regarding the Marines:  "that argument on the 22nd was a real bitch, but I think I should have won a fucking oscar. I even quoted a few movies, remember 'what the hell am I gonna do now man?! what am I gonna do!?' thats good ole Hudson from aliens. Sounded good too. and hey goddamnit I would have been a fucking great marine, It would have given me a reason to do good." So, basically, his "devastation" at not making the Marines was an act. Probably so was him mentioning it to Mark Manes the evening before the masscare.

I think he was referring to an argument with Bob Kirgis concerning alcohol. Not the Marines. The boss ratted him out to his parents about a hidden flask of whiskey or something. He didn't want to see Eric go down the same road he chose - which was alcoholism.

IIRC, the quote about the Marines was in reaction of acquiring the guns and being past the point of no return. As in, ''well i'm gonna die now, but I would have been a great Marine had I lived''.

Yes, my assessment as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Eric never lived to find out the marines dropped him because of the meds he was taking. Back there on 20/4 he was still thinking the marines would have likley accepted him.

Frankly, I think Eric would make a poor marine and not because of physical requirements. I do nto think he would mesh well with other recruits and I do not think he had the patience and obedience to go through with actual USMC life. He understood authority, but taht doesn't mean he was ready to be submissive enough for the military. IMHO he was too impulsive and wuld get himself in trouble because of this.

I seriously have doubts that Eric would have been able to meet the physical requirements. Dude was scrawny as hell. He looked weak. A little uncoordinated too. The Marines training program is pretty gruelling.

The recruiter tried to call Eric and inform him of his ineligibility, yet he never responded. Eric probably put two and two together and realized he would never be a Marine due to the medication.

I can see this going both ways with Eric. One hand I can see him chaffing against the rules and regulations. One the other I can see it providing him with a life of structure and discipline that he probably needed. If he had of gone in and done well, I can see him being able to start to build a life on that foundation of self esteem and accomplishment. It's very sad that nobody will ever know how or what he could have done there.

MegaloX wrote:

I seriously have doubts that Eric would have been able to meet the physical requirements. Dude was scrawny as hell. He looked weak. A little uncoordinated too. The Marines training program is pretty gruelling

Agreed, meant to say that Eric would have made a poor marine not just because of insuficient physical capacity, but also because of personality issues. should ahve been mroe clear on that part.

Sabratha wrote:

MegaloX wrote:

I seriously have doubts that Eric would have been able to meet the physical requirements. Dude was scrawny as hell. He looked weak. A little uncoordinated too. The Marines training program is pretty gruelling

Agreed, meant to say that Eric would have made a poor marine not just because of insuficient physical capacity, but also because of personality issues. should ahve been mroe clear on that part.

Oh, it was absolutely clear. PaintItBlack worded my opinion perfectly regarding Eric, had he been accepted into the Marines. I just have a hard time seeing him pass the physical test in the first place. Wanted to put my two cents in about this specifically.