The Tragedy of Madness.

By now everyone must have heard the horrific massacre at the movie theater in Colorado.  Twelve dead in cold blood and more than fifty wounded but I suspect the dead toll will continue to rise.  And why?  Because a once brilliant, promising student plunged into the dark world of madness and nobody saw it coming.  We try to protect ourselves from overt terrorism at the airport with scanning machines and secret service agents but how do we protect ourselves from the madness within our shores?  How do we protect ourselves from a man bent on destruction and self destruction?  This man was an American citizen, by all accounts what we classify as a "winner" yet now he joins the ranks of the many monsters that preceded him.  If  his parents saw the signs of his mental deterioration, shame on them for not doing something about it before it was too late.  Now they'll have to live with the blood of the innocent, fun loving victims on their hands.  And as for us, just another horrific example of the madness all around us we have to live with.  Just another horrific example of the fragility of our lives.  A madman or a terrorist can invade our subways, our stores, our supermarkets, our gyms or anywhere were a lot of people gather and carry out his monstrous deed.  He has nothing more to lose because he's already lost his soul so his goal is to take as many people with him as possible.  I suspect that in the dark world Mr. Holmes has retreated to, he feels like a hero today.  The man who once tried to be a great healer had successfuly made the switch to a great destroyer.  I suspect this man always had megalomaniac tendencies and it was only a matter of time before madness overtook him.  What will happen to him now?  Unfortunately nothing much.  He'll probably spend the rest of his sorry days in a mental institution, drugged out of his mind and pacing with all the other lost souls of the world.  He will never confront the horror of his actions.  He'll never think of the people he ambushed and murdered in cold blood or the ones he wounded and perhaps blinded or paralized for life.  We have the torment, because every time a horrific thing like this happens, we lose a little bit of ourselves.