Published:?Friday, April 26, 2013
Updated:?Saturday, April 27, 2013 19:04
?? ?The meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,? wrote Joseph Conrad, ?Enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze.?
?? In Conrad?s legendary tale, The Heart of Darkness, Marlow insightfully observes that he cannot find understanding from a strange encounter while analyzing the experiencing alone, but rather he only finds significance while retelling the story to others.
?? On Monday, April 16, two bomb explosions killed four people and injured over one hundred at the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon.
??? After the news widely spread, buzz rushed across the world, questioning who the criminals were and what their particular goals were. As moral human beings, we desire to seek answers in order to try to understand such incomprehensible actions. ?
?? For the following few days, my thoughts were paralyzed. The only coherent words that I could mutter about the topic were, ?It is just awful; just unbelievable.?
??? As the words splattered out of my mouth, I could immediately sense their inadequacy. The sentiment was too generic, too ingenuine to capture the true evil of the tragedy. I internally scolded myself, ?How could I be so passive about a disaster of this degree??
?? I realize now that my frustration with attempting to describe the calamity reflected my struggle to grasp what even occurred.
?? With so many human-caused tragedies occurring in the past year from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to the Colorado Dark Knight Rises gunfire to last week?s Patriots? Day attack, receiving news about a shooting is now like ripping off a band-aid.
??? I suffer from an immediate, tender sting to the heart. However, this ache seems to dwindle into a blur of numb confusion. ?
?? ... Who can I contact to make sure that they are safe? To make sure that they know they are loved? How can I just continue life here in the Holy Cross bubble when the outside world is a war zone?
?? Why is The New York Times posting invasive, graphic photographs of the victims and calling it news? Who are these killers? How long did they plan this attack ? a month, a year, or perhaps a decade? Why is another place ? another population?s home ? being destroyed yet again?? When will this seemingly unbreakable chain of hate end? If a shielding, higher power exists, how can he allow such slaughter to transpire? Is this a punishment? Is this a lesson? How can I help? ...
?? We are naturally at a loss for answers on why another human being would single handedly create such cruelty among our own and how to continue living in a society that is clearly corrupted.
??? Neither any expert nor I can even define this pure evil and certainly cannot even place a guess on how this represents the world that we shaped or how to determine a solution.
?? Even after Friday, April 19?s capture, I don?t feel like there has truly been any closure. Even if we do ain information from the nineteen year old, would we feel any more sense of comfort? I honestly do believe that I would.
?? I truly don?t think having concrete answers would bring any genuine ease or understanding. I suspect that grave perplexity would still linger in my thoughts.
?? Perhaps, instead, we adapt Marlow?s mentality regarding the complexity of closure. For such grand depictions of evil, it is impossible to observe and then immediately conclude on our own.
?? Continuous discussion and care are the only actions that a typical human can pursue at the moment. Yet, maybe that is all many of us ordinary onlookers can really need to do right now.
?? However, Marlow utters a lie in the end of the novella to ease a widower?s pain, which is certainly not a model to follow. We cannot evade the truth as a remedy for grief.
?? Caregivers, victims, police, doctors, and onlookers across the world must confront the heart of darkness to progressively heal.
?? Like many of us, I find myself to be amidst a hazed cloud of uncertainty.
??? As much as I crave to know why lives were taken and impaired at this year?s Boston Marathon, I don?t know if I am prepared for the answer.
?? Marlow uncovers understanding by retelling the story throughout his journey. With an evil so immense, we, too, must fight our way upstream through the heart of darkness of our today?s society, the pain, hate, confusion, violence, and death.
??? We must look outside of the hard facts for an answer to this grief. Even when surrounded by so much uncertainty with each other, we must depend on each other to prevail forward.
Source: http://www.thehccrusader.com/opinions/the-heart-of-darkness-of-21st-century-society-1.3037181
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