Fearless

If you felt like blowing up a building and/or shooting anyone and everyone within your eyesight, what would keep you from doing it?

a) Fear of the law
b) Fear of God
c) Fear of death

Either you're afraid that the law will nab you, lock you up, and throw away the key; or you're afraid that God will cast you down into Hell for your sins; or you're afraid of finding out what lies beyond the great threshold, and/or of missing out on the good things that might happen tomorrow if you can stay alive for one more day.

Eric and Dylan feared none of these things, and that is why they were able to do what they did.

You might say, "They feared life more than they feared death."

Did they?

Netflix. I love it way too much to leave it

Netflix? Then in LPorter's thought experiment you can totally have your cake and eat it too... (I'm thinking of James Holmes here, he'll have his entire life with little more to do than watching TV in a cell.)

c) would be the one stopping me, if I ever wanted to do something like that (I don't, never did, never will).


(FWIW, you have to be mentally sick to dislike life to the point of preferring to end it... The boys were, just like nearly everyone else who chooses suicide.)

Can it be a chocolate cake?

Neither of the 3 in fact.

Now, don't let this statement make you assume I am planning to blow something up at all! However fear would not prevent me from anything.

What does "prevent me" (wrong term tbh, as it would presuppose I had any evil plans to begin with) is my willingness to do other things in my life instead of blowing stuff up, killing people or myself.

No thanks, I have better things to do.

I'm with Sabratha on this one, if I really wanted to then none of three would prevent me. I'm just not that desperate to blow anything up.

lio45 wrote:

(FWIW, you have to be mentally sick to dislike life to the point of preferring to end it... The boys were, just like nearly everyone else who chooses suicide.)

Completely disagree with you here. If anything, those who are depressed/choose suicide see more clearly, as they are usually not blinded by the lie of a life that society has created for us.

I think only the shame my parents and closest friends would have to carry would be the one thing stopping me if I really wanted to do it. But maybe when you reach a certain point you don't care anymore. Obviously I don't want to do it

eli27 wrote:

I'm with Sabratha on this one, if I really wanted to then none of three would prevent me. I'm just not that desperate to blow anything up.

lio45 wrote:

(FWIW, you have to be mentally sick to dislike life to the point of preferring to end it... The boys were, just like nearly everyone else who chooses suicide.)

Completely disagree with you here. If anything, those who are depressed/choose suicide see more clearly, as they are usually not blinded by the lie of a life that society has created for us.

Instead in most cases, they are blinded by the lie they create themselves. Its one or the other, perfect clarity is something most aspire to, few ever achieve.

Sabratha wrote:

eli27 wrote:

I'm with Sabratha on this one, if I really wanted to then none of three would prevent me. I'm just not that desperate to blow anything up.

lio45 wrote:

(FWIW, you have to be mentally sick to dislike life to the point of preferring to end it... The boys were, just like nearly everyone else who chooses suicide.)

Completely disagree with you here. If anything, those who are depressed/choose suicide see more clearly, as they are usually not blinded by the lie of a life that society has created for us.

Instead in most cases, they are blinded by the lie they create themselves. Its one or the other, perfect clarity is something most aspire to, few ever achieve.

Perfect clarity is relative to personal belief and thought, as well as situational. Eric and Dylan clearly knew the consequences of their actions. So much so in fact that they knew they would have to kill themselves or die to escape capture. Hell Dylan may have honestly believed if he killed himself he would enter Halcyon or a heaven. Was that a lie he told himself to justify his depression and urge to die, or did he truly believe it? Did Eric actually believe by giving his life he'd "kick start" a revolution? Where do you draw the lines between lie, delusion, and clear decision making? You have to truly have it in your heart to blow up your school. They knew they were throwing their lives away, and they knew there was a chance they would fail. They decided that if all they got was a single kill before they died it would be worth it. I'd think it takes a pretty clear head to weigh the options and possible outcomes and then still go through with it. If anything these types of killings as well as most suicides are caused by clear delusions and not blurry lies.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
All I can say is that when my friend and I were starting down the same path as E &D, looking back now I can honestly say that we were blinded by our pain and anger.
I don't think we fully understood the long term consequences for ourselves or the others or that there was a better choice we could be making or a better way to deal with how people abused us except wholesale pain and anger.
I can't help but imagine that it must have been the same for E &D for much if not all of the way.

For me it would be my own conscience. I feel horrible when I do even little things wrong that hurt other people. Unless it is people who have gone out of their way to harass me, then I have no problem standing up for myself. But my conscience wouldn't ever allow me to just blow up a building with tons of innocent people in it. It would eat me up the rest of my life. No thanks.

Nirvana92 wrote:

Hell Dylan may have honestly believed if he killed himself he would enter Halcyon or a heaven. Was that a lie he told himself to justify his depression and urge to die, or did he truly believe it? Did Eric actually believe by giving his life he'd "kick start" a revolution? Where do you draw the lines between lie, delusion, and clear decision making?

Well, that's the subtle difference that is often lost in the English language. Perhaps "lie" was not the best term to use and I should have sticked with the less vivid, but moire precise term of "false belief" when it comes to Dylan.

Its possible that Dylan believed or made himself to believe in this. I am under the impression that his depression and suicidal notions came first and then he build the rest of his belief system around that. Eric on the otehr hand, I believe, came from the opposite end - with siucide becoming the last part of the chain of reasoning that started out with his previous beliefs.

Then again, we cannot be sure eitehr way its not something that can be proved eitehr way. I'm pretty convinced that this is how they constructed their belief systems in part because of the chronology of their writings. But that's of course up to debate.

Nirvana92 wrote:

You have to truly have it in your heart to blow up your school. They knew they were throwing their lives away, and they knew there was a chance they would fail. They decided that if all they got was a single kill before they died it would be worth it. I'd think it takes a pretty clear head to weigh the options and possible outcomes and then still go through with it. If anything these types of killings as well as most suicides are caused by clear delusions and not blurry lies.

No argument there. Still, its a valid question to be asked: Did Dylan first consider suicide and only later on chose the specific form, time and place of suicide (spree shooting at CHS), or did he start out with a hatered of CHS which down the road became a suicide plan?

I believe the former is correct.

PaintItBlack wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
All I can say is that when my friend and I were starting down the same path as E &D, looking back now I can honestly say that we were blinded by our pain and anger.
I don't think we fully understood the long term consequences for ourselves or the others or that there was a better choice we could be making or a better way to deal with how people abused us except wholesale pain and anger.
I can't help but imagine that it must have been the same for E &D for much if not all of the way.

Well, that could be true but only if one assumes that the driving force behind E&D was being abused by other people, as it seems to have been in your own case.
I do not consider it very likely in the case of E&D. Simply put, I don't think E&D were like Mitchell Johnson or Jeff Weise. There was in my opinion a very different dynamic going on there.

Jenn wrote:

For me it would be my own conscience.

Yeah I think this thread now mentions two factors which I certainly posess in lo large quantities and which would in any event NOT stop me - fear and conscience.

I don't think I ever made any meaningfull decision in my life due to either fear or conscience. That's just not how my mind works.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
It may have ended up as being more than that but I firmly believe that bullying and ostracization was the germination of the NBK plot.I can't prove it definitively but that's my belief.

PaintItBlack wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
It may have ended up as being more than that but I firmly believe that bullying and ostracization  was the germination of the NBK plot.I can't prove it definitively but that's my belief.

Fair enough. Guess we will never know for sure. I would expect to see more about alienation or bullying in their writings if that were the case, but yeha we've been through this before ;)

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Teenage boys are supposed to keep up a manly image and perhaps E &D would have thought that going on and on about being bullying and mistreated in their writings would have made them look too wimpy. Of course that is just speculation but I think that is possible there is more they might have held back from saying about it for that reason.

Religion and the fact that I wouldn't be able to see the impact.

PaintItBlack wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Teenage boys are supposed to keep up a manly image and perhaps E &D would have thought that going on and on about being bullying and mistreated in their writings would have made them look too wimpy. Of course that is just speculation but I think that is possible there is more they might have held back from saying about it for that reason.

I dunno, but my impression is that both Eric and Dylan were to some extent "injustice collectors" and would probably jump at the opportunity to name specific people who annoyed them, then come out with some macho revenge thing.

Dylan supposedly does somethign similar with the sophomore who will be "missing his jaw" on the BT. E&D allegedly on the BT also rant against Walsh and the PD a lot for all the shit they had to take as a result of getting caught.


Honestly, if bullying or school harrasment was so high on thier list of important thing, I'd expect to see a lot of it reflected in their writing, particularly Eric's writings. Eric seems to have enjoyed blasting at people who annoyed him for both big and minor reasons.

Instead he doesn't rant about anything remotely similar to bullying in his journal. He complains his friends don't ask him for advice enough, don't invite him to parties he'd like to go and overall don't treat him with the reverence he believes he deserves.

When he writes about school, he rants about how it is turning people into robots and how the whole "orderly-but-automatized" world doesn't relaly suit people like himself. I'd imagine if bullying was a big issue for him, he would point to that in his rant against the school. Not make the shcool a part of his "society makes robots" rant.

Clearly his gripes with society are incredibly more important for him than bullying. That's teh clear impression I got after reading his journal.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
I base this in part that when I used to complain to people about my bullying I was often told to "stop whining" and "stop being a baby."
I can only imagine that the pressure on teenage boys to be tough and seem tough is so much worse.
They get it from all sides, friends, family, society.
E &D often tried to come off as badass and tough, probably more so they actually really felt some of the time.
It's just another possibility.

PaintItBlack wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
I base this in part that when I used to complain to people about my bullying I was often told to "stop whining" and "stop being a baby."
I can only imagine that the pressure on teenage boys to be tough and seem tough is so much worse.
They get it from all sides, friends, family, society.
E &D often tried to come off as badass and tough, probably more so they actually really felt some of the time.
It's just another possibility.

They did try to pass themselves as "badass", sure. However, in their journals in particular, they seem to be quite open about many issues that make them look very un-macho and like regular whiny teens.

Eric is particularly blunt. He writes that he's weak and scrawny. He writes that he can't get any. He whines that his friends don't invite him to do "fun things" and in that passage refers to himself as the "weird Eric kid" (or that he thinks they refer to him as such, its not entirely clear). On the BT Eric is alledgedly reported to whine about Walsh, how he had to make stupid community service because he fumbled and got caught.

I just would find it odd that the guy who openly admits that he's "weak and scrawny" and "can't get any" would suddenly feel ashamed to writre stuff like: "Oh and today 3 football players tackled me to the ground and made fun of me". That would be far less damaging imho to his "macho image" then whining taht he doesn't get invited to parties and that he can't get any.

Eric was an injustice collector and seems to have fed himself on the people who pissed him off for reasons big and small, and seems to have enjoyed planning to get back at them. I'm sure we would hear a lot from him in the journal if he had a specific personal gripe with some person who would bully him. Revenage and hate would actually give him a platform to show some macho-traits, while whining about not getting any gives him neither (and yet he does it). That's the way I see it.

Dylan is more cryptic, and concentrates on his inner emotions and doesn't describe much as far as actual events go. So I'd be less surprised if he would skip bullying or describe it in very vague terms only. Still, even he is open about how he is dissatisfied with himself and wants to kill himself.


In general I think they were expecting the BT to become available to the public and media, while they seems to have expected that the journals are far less likely to go pblic and get a lot of attention. That's imho why they (especially Dylan) would be so open about some of their inner thoughts taht they wouldn't necessarily want to projects as their "lasting legacy" so to speak.

But that does make the journals more interesting, as they seem to offer the clearest and least "faked" insight into the minds of the shooters.

LPorter101 wrote:

If you felt like blowing up a building and/or shooting anyone and everyone within your eyesight, what would keep you from doing it?

a) Fear of the law
b) Fear of God
c) Fear of death

Either you're afraid that the law will nab you, lock you up, and throw away the key; or you're afraid that God will cast you down into Hell for your sins; or you're afraid of finding out what lies beyond the great threshold, and/or of missing out on the good things that might happen tomorrow if you can stay alive for one more day.

Eric and Dylan feared none of these things, and that is why they were able to do what they did.

Eric and Dylan definitely didn't want to be caught by anyone. They chose suicide as a way to escape and murder as revenge for all.
I think most people are afraid of the law. I wonder if there was a so-called "purge" where all crimes committed within a certain period of time is not punishable by law, how many people would participate in the "festival"?

I'm just too lazy for it.