Yes, the Ever-lasting contrast. Since existence has known, the 'fight' between good & evil has continued. Obviously, this fight can never end. Good things turn bad, bad things become good. My fav. contrasting symbol, because it is so true & means so much – the battle between good & bad never ends… Here we ponder on the tragedy of Dylan Klebold.
Honey, there are people like Eric and Dylan all over the place. It’s just that these unnoticed geeky nobodies did something horrible to have been seen. Look around you, there are plenty of lonely, intelligent, struggling Eric and Dylans hidden in plain sight everywhere that would want your friendship so they don’t feel the need to pull the kind of crap these knuckleheads did.
Dylan was always showing his cute shyness and charismatic side when he was a bomb ready to explode on the inside, and Eric was always trying to show he was an actual bomb ready to explode when he was just an insecured boy needed for attention on the inside.
Dylan and Eric were so different on character and internal world as the ice and flames. Their meeting and subsequent friendship is a fatal mistake. This friendship has destroyed the souls of 13 innocent people. Harris’s parents made a mistake when they persuaded Dylan’s mother to allow the boys to be friends after the robbery of the van. The boys could have survived. One of them had good chances to cope with their problems without resorting to violence because his soul was not so sick and exhausted. And without him, the tragedy would not have happened..My personal opinion..
Interesting compare and contrasts here. Thing is, Sue would only have been able to exercise so much control in separating the two unless she moved Dylan to another school. Dylan wasnt working at Blackjack at that point in time, so seriously separating them at school would’ve been the only way to seriously severe their friendship. But I’m not sure if Dylan’s parents would’ve taken things seriously enough to want to do that. Telling Dylan he could no longer be friends wouldnt have easily been the solution to dissuade their long time friendship. The two boys gravitated in one another’s orbit and would’ve likely continued on in the halls and classes at school inspite of ‘them’ being forbidden by their parents.
@everlasting-contrast People aren’t clairvoyants, unfortunately. No one could have known that this friendship would be so destructive for both boys. But were they equally attracted to each other? You know, I think it would be easier for Dylan to give up his friendship with Eric. Dylan’s affection for him was weaker than Eric’s for Dylan. You did a lot of research on Dylan’s personality, and you can’t help but know that Dylan didn’t think Eric was his best friend and went with him to the NBK just because their goals coincided at a certain point. If their goals were to diverge, Dylan would not go with Eric and chose a different path. Personal purpose is always a priority for a person..
No, of course they couldn’t have predicted something as horrible as that. However, the van theft felony was a pretty bad enough happening, a criminal offense committed between these two boys which made Sue seriously consider splitting the two up. And had she not been swayed by her compassion for Kathy pleading her case that they should remain friends for her largely friendless son’s sake, there’s a somewhat fair shot that we wouldn’t all be talking about this 19 years later. But like I said, that would depend on how serious Sue and Tom were about putting a stop to their friendship, and so I was questioning in my reply back to your post how committed the Klebold’s would’ve been to do everything in their power to make it not possible for the two boys to be gravitating in one another’s orbit. Parents can only exercise so much control unless they literally broke them up by way of one moving to another school. I don’t even know if Sue considered the possibility of putting Dylan in another school but that is likely would’ve had to happen to effectively end their friendship. Tom worked hard to get Dylan into Columbine because of the schools top academics. But by default, Dylan was supposed to go to another school in the area based on where they lived. So, I don’t honestly see them doing everything possible to keep the two apart. Sue may have wanted to but I doubt she could get Tom on board with moving Dylan.
Just because we knew that Dylan was trying to make an effort to distance himself from Eric doesn’t necessarily mean it was easier for him to be rid of Eric in a cold and callous sort of way. This is why I believe he enlisted the help of his mom to act as a filter between them whenever Eric called to invite him to do something. How many times have any of us been in a not so healthy friendship or love relationship where we want to leave it but somehow we always just keep coming back to them out of comfortable habit? So, I think there was this cognitive dissonance and ambivalence for Dylan about Eric. A part of him may have wanted to wean from Eric but he was too emotionally invested in many years of the relationship. On one hand, he’s thinking ‘Eric is crazy’ but on the other, he there’s plenty of other things about the dude (ironically even the fucking nuts parts about him) and so things start to slide back to the way they were. He had a handful of years of friendship with Eric; what would life be like without him? So, there’s this ambivalence about his friendship with Eric.
Whereas with Eric, Dylan is his one and only best friend in Littleton, Colorado – just like Eric always had that one and only best friend in all the other states he’d lived in. Dylan was that replacement Best Friend that fulfilled all of Eric’s emotional needs. It just so happened that Dylan fit the bill for Eric’s needs as his choice in a best friend could’ve been someone else if the two didn’t have classes in Jr. High. Yes, the two see their friendship very differently from their own personal perspectives but that doesn’t make them any less of an extremely tight friendship. I don’t believe that both had to be equally attracted to one another, to feel and hold the exact same kind of ‘best friend’ loyalty in their friendship for it to be genuine. Both were certainly emotionally co-dependent on one another which is why Dylan capitulated and continued to remain loyally by Eric’s side. So what if Dylan may not have viewed Eric as “best friend” material? Eric was his close friend and enough for him to decide he would choose to kill with him so they could both die together. This proves commitment enough. And honestly, both of their goals could’ve diverged at any point, both could’ve landed steady girlfriends or found other dude friendships that clicked, and so there is that future Timeline B, C or D in which they both could’ve had a change of heart and chosen another path. But they were not only a close friendship but a business arrangement that provided what they both needed to 1) To take revenge on their school and by extension, Society 2) to get off the hellish merry-go-round that was this world for both of them and to die What other close friendships out there would be nuts enough to do what they did together and to complete the mission without any faltering or second thoughts? That’s some pretty deep trust and friendship commitment. So, Dylan may have weighed all his options, unlike Eric who put all his eggs in one basket with Dylan but ultimately, Dylan’s actions proved he stood beside Eric and to the bloody end.
silmario-rebel psychology says that a person can have many faces. Dylan’s diary shows his weak side, his deep feelings and all, but with Eric he showed his strong side, Vodka, and Eric did the same with his rebel side. They just felt more confortable with each other. Inside the house, Dylan was the sunshine boy of his mother, with his friends he was just Dylan, in his diary he was the god of sadness, in school he was nobody, but with Eric he was Vodka.
@ descending-angel: Well said.^^I’m in alignment with other things you’ve had to say in this thread also. There are multiple facets and personas as part of Dylan’s personality. It rarely, if ever, is as black or white as ‘follower or leader’ or ‘loyal friend or duplicitous, manipulating fake friend’ when it comes to a people. There is nuanced shades of gray and complexity in everyone. People often portray themselves in a myriad of different ways depending on who they’re with and where they at (work, school, with friends, etc.) When they go home, there is a freedom of being exactly who they are with themselves that many who may have known them for years, may not have even seen that side of their friend before.. And all of these facets are part of what is comprised of an entire individual. I also agree with your views on Dylan and Eric’s friendship dynamics as well. This thread has been an interesting weigh-in with all of our differing thoughts and opinions. 🙂
By Bill Hutchinson NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, April 22, 1999, 12:00 AM
LITTLETON, Colo. Eric Harris seemed like a nice suburban neighbor to Karen Good, helping retrieve her puppy after it wandered into his garage a few months back. But Harris, 18, unnerved classmates at Columbine High School by insisting on tossing bowling balls, shot-put style, down the alley. Dylan Klebold, 17, double-dated last week at the high school prom. He also scared classmates with sudden outbursts, like the time he started tackling girls during a gym class game of touch football last fall. “He called me a bitch and said I was a psycho,” said Tara Zobjeck, 16, a sophomore who asked him to stop. A day after the two self-styled members of the Trench Coat Mafia turned their high school into a killing field, Harris and Klebold were remembered as living in two worlds. To some friends and neighbors, they seemed like intelligent, if disaffected, teens who adopted an anti-social pose as a protest against their suburban surroundings. The pair dressed in black from head to toe wore steel-toed boots and spouted Nazi slogans but also discussed Taoism and Eastern philosophies. “I know those guys to be really good people,” said one pal named Nick, who wore black boots and a cap with crossed swords. “I just can’t believe they would do something like this.
” Sarah Nielson, a freshman at the school, described Harris as a straight-A student. Nick Baumgart, 17, a senior, had known Klebold since they were boy scouts together. He said he thought the Trench Coat Mafia was nothing more than a schoolyard clique and never suspected they would turn to violence. “He was just a really smart kid, a good kid, too,” Baumgart said. “He never expressed any anger or violence, he was just a really quiet kid.”
But Klebold, the son of a retired Army veteran, changed after Harris moved to Littleton about two years ago and the two became friends, some said. Klebold, who lived with his family in an upscale home surrounded by several acres of land, took to spending long hours in the basement and garage of Harris’ home. They played violent computer games like Doom and read up on hate screeds, classmates said. "Dylan was a follower, who was constantly looking for someone to lead,” Baumgart said. Along with their black coats and outfits, the two teens started spouting hatred for blacks, Hispanics and Jews. They shared a special hatred for athletes. During their murderous spree, one even shouted, “All jocks stand up!”
Sarah (Nielson) told "Larry King Live” that the school athletes frequently harassed them for their Gothic styles and that “they stood up for each other” when picked on. Both, however, followed sports. Klebold was a big fan of the Boston Red Sox, and Harris’ big brother plays baseball for Western State College in Gunnison, Colo. What some saw as individualism, others began to see as the tip of a scary iceberg. “Dylan said he hated the jocks, and how they could walk over people and thought they were tough,” said Andrew Beard, another classmate. A Web site that Harris apparently designed included depictions of death and vicious threats. And the two often talked about building fireworks and bombs. Klebold and Harris, whose father is a retired Air Force pilot, were arrested last year for breaking into a car. They completed their probation in January. But even after the mass killing, classmates couldn’t figure out what went wrong. “I can’t understand how someone could be so angry,” said James Concilio, 18.
Dylan was smart, intelligent, a quiet kid… He was, maybe, a little bit more kind of easily agitated. He harbored grudges. I guess, it’s the worst I could say about him.
Yes, they knew it. They went back upstairs to the library (Eric looked kind of rushed on the CCTV as he sprints upstairs) and immediately walked to the expansive glass windows at noon. This was the time they’d set their car bombs to blow. So, I think they were kinda hoping those bombs would go off and they’d have a sweet view of it from the library windows, and when that never happened, it devolved into the last shootout with the cops.
Oh, you would, huh. And why is that? (Yes, it’s most definitely the weekend given the nature of these questions….)
Well, what would happen is that Sue would be protesting that she didn’t want to fight her and Kathy would just break down in tears. End of story. Kinda dull ultimately.
Well, he didn’t give out his suicidal love note..thanksfully. but his Conqueror poem would’ve made a steady girlfriend radiately beam with pride in her choice in men. ❤
Oh, that’s awesome. I love when stuff like that just turns up out of the blue! What format is this in? Feel free to send them to CVA’s youtube and/or mine. I’d be happy to post some of the vid content here if relevant.
I call dibs on the “Dylan eating a donut” vid tho. 😉
Ah, I don’t think you’d know how to handle the likes of me, tiny Rebby. 😉
“It is so clear, yet so foggy Everything’s connected,separated I am the only interpreter of this
Existence… . what a strange word. He set out by determination & curiosity, knows no existence, knows nothing relevant to himself. The petty declarations of others & everything on this world, in this world, he knows the answers to. Yet they have no purpose to him. He seeks knowledge of the unthinkable, of the undefineable, of the unknown. He explores the everything … using his mind, the most powerful tool known to him. Not a physical barrier blocking the limits of exploration, time thru thought thru dimensions … the everything is his realm. Yet, the more he thinks, hoping to find answers to his questions, the more come up. Amazingly, the petty things mean much to him at this time, how he wants to be normal, not this transceiver of the everything. Then occurring to him, the answer. How everything is connected yet separate.”
Thanks for filling in the blanks on Dylan’s definition of the meaning. Here are two other explanations for everlasting and contrast.
And, well, to be fair, we all are/can be transceivers of the everything it’s just that many people haven’t gotten that far just yet in their awakening process. Dylan just intuited all of that at an earlier age. 🙂
The Everlasting Contrast 