Do you think Dylan truly believed in some kind of afterlife/a halcyon? Or was it just false hope, something to motivate him. Would he have killed himself, had he had known there would have been nothing after he died.

I just answered this question in my comment here. Haha. Dylan created his afterlife and wrote of it in a way that made it become a kind of ‘personal faith’ for himself. If he was told that there was just nothing after this life? I believe he’d still want to leave..to die.. Nothingness would seem a vast improvement to the so-called something-ness here. Only I think that he was such that he innately believed on a deep, intuitive, knowing ‘what is’ level that there was..would be..more to The Universe than just this. So, his belief that there would be many ‘existences’ for his soul beyond this crude three dimensional one in this vast universe was unshakeable within him. He was determined to make it to the 5th Dimension, actually.. It seems impossible for his internal compass to believe there could only be a void of nothingness in death.

My Conversations with Sue Klebold

thedragonrampant:

I promised myself I would no longer promote Peter Langman’s work as much, but this was too good an article to pass up because he speaks of the times he talked with Sue Klebold here. It’s a nice window into the other side of her conversations, which she does describe in her book as well.

We spoke a second time a few weeks later. We talked about my view of
Dylan and his psychological decline. She said that she was not hurt by
anything I had written, but the whole process of looking at him through
the lens of psychology was stirring up a lot of feelings. She talked
about her feelings of guilt for
not having recognized what he was going through or having been able to
“save” her son. I tried to reassure her that children with good parents
often face struggles that do not seem to make sense in the face of their
outward circumstances. For example, I know many people whose children
took their own lives—not because of how their parents treated them but
in spite of how much their parents loved them.

I remember reading years ago about a brief encounter Sue had with
someone who said in effect, “I just want you to know that I forgive
you.” Sue responded along the lines of, “I haven’t done anything for
which I need your forgiveness.” Though some people saw that as an attempt to evade responsibility, I was impressed by her moral clarity. She did not kill anyone. She
was not responsible for Columbine. Nonetheless, she has agonized daily
about what she did and didn’t do as a parent. When I reminded Sue of her
comment to the woman who “forgave” her, she became choked up. She said
she tries to hold onto that clarity but it is very difficult.

Langman gave Sue a very consoling message that she really needed to hear, however, that said, I’m still not down with his post- mortem diagnosis of Dylan or either boy for that matter.

Langman diagnoses Dylan with Schizotypal Personality Disorder and I don’t agree with part of the criteria of this disorder which is to apply ‘Magical Thinking". I veer off from him specifically on the part where he believes Dylan was delusional and losing touch with reality and this was showing up fragmented in his journal.

“His thinking was fragmented and jumbled, and he wrote about himself as not being human, as if he were some sort of god-like entity. The line between reality and fantasy was disintegrating. His deteriorating psychological state, combined with the influence of Eric Harris, led Dylan to engage in acts that seemed incomprehensible to people who knew him.”

I do not believe the line between fantasy and reality for Dylan was disintegrating into delusions thinking. Instead, these were coping mechanisms that he consciously generated for himself, sort of a fantasy faith belief system that he constructed to make himself feel better to get himself through each day in his struggles. As if a person was diagnosed with a terminal illness and they imagined how their own personal vision of ‘Heaven’ might be, Dylan applies “Magical Thinking” in the same manner by invented his Halcyon where a Love meant for him was fated to unite with him. It was like dangling a carrot before him, a place far, far better than here that would sustain him a little bit longer until it was time to finally exit from this unbearable life. I believe he was fully aware and cognizant fabricating these concepts in his journal and that he was not deteriorating nor losing touch with reality. He was fully functional each day while simultaneously weaving his own personal fairy tale for himself in his journal by night. These concepts he generated intentionally was his only ‘bright side’ to look forward to.

My Conversations with Sue Klebold

Does it make you mad sometimes that Dylan broke his family and ruined his parents lives? I love him, but seeing how broken Sue is makes me angry.

Does he make me angry, frustrated and lamenting for the utter devastation he’s left in his wake for his family and the people he was close with?  But of course it does, absolutely. The mixture of feelings are overwhelming, perplexing, contradictory and complicated most acutely so while reading his mother’s collection of memories. In fact, the book hasn’t simplified anything and instead, it’s made him and the path he chose to take more complex and enigmatic. At the same time I can appreciate what Sue mentions essentially – that Dylan was just too mono-focused on his own pain and suffering and apathetic disconnectedness to ever really dwell on the consequences of his actions for those he knew and cared for.  Perhaps he thought that he just wouldn’t be missed all that much for it to really matter?  And the crime he’d be committing would confirm he was someone that was never to be loved or missed or mourned for in the first place because he never felt he mattered much in this world.

While taping one of the Basement Tapes he half mutters to himself about his parents “they’ve been good to me, I don’t want to browse there”. At the same time, was he also alluding that he himself had not been good enough for them?  He was “sorry for all the crap this might cause” but did he think in time they’d move on and be better for it without him in their lives?  Dylan was just to checked out and compartmentalized near the end and while he may have thought about how sweet the revenge would be before leaving this shit hole, he was simply to blind to see and understand the flip side of his choice, the scope of infinite pain and suffering it would cause his parents whom he recognized were good to him, and for the rest of their lives.  Yes, of course it makes me angry and sad that Dylan was too blind to see or care but at the same time, I also understand that place he devolved to in order for embrace such an heinous, permanent act without barely glancing over his shoulder at loved ones he would be dropping a bomb on in his wake. One thing became more important than the other; death became more important than life. The relief in death was a priority above everything and everyone else.  

If only Dylan could have had the opportunity to be dropped into something like the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and then reinserted back into the timeline – so that he may have glimpsed the future pain and suffering he’d cause his mom and dad and his brother and circle of friends and the fall out in the world with the victims and their families. The short term revenge he was fixated on would suddenly have not seemed so sweet. His parents, that were so bereft themselves at one point, they too wanted to die if only to follow him.  Or that sixteen years on the result of his action has ended with his parents in divorce because of the unending, ongoing grief that eventually caused a rift between the two as they could not process the pain in a way that would nurture and heal one another.  Dylan had no means to witness and react to all of those things that would happen when he was blotted out of existence and immortalized as a horrific criminal. The future consequences for loved ones was only a flat concept in his mind in that it would probably be a momentary inconvenience and hurtful to them.  That it’d be temporary, they’d move on and forget him. and that the crime he committed would ensure that fact that he was ultimately not a good and right thing for this world of which he felt estranged. So, yes, it makes me angry that he was too ill impaired to see and yeah, you just want to shake him and show him the full 360 degree picture of what the future would bring in his absence.. And ugh, all of those tears and pain for his mother who has endlessly endured and weathered so much pain. She bared the brunt of it for him, for herself, yet loves him still and despite all of it, she will always love the real him no matter his actions, no matter what.

Hey! Just wondering if you could direct me to the video of Dylan walking (I think) down the aisle of a grocery store? If so, what’s the story behind it? I’ve seen it a few times but can’t find it and don’t hear much about it ever. Thanks buddy!

Certainly.  In the Morning Ritual video at around 2:18

The video date stamp is on Eric’s 18th birthday 4/9/99.  It is assumed that Dylan and Nate are visiting King Soopers grocery store to pick out a cake.. or something.. for Eric’s birthday but it could just as easily be the boys with Nate going on a morning donut run on Eric’s bday before heading off to school.  We really don’t know just what they’re doing in the store.

I read through the 10 questions list for Sue and number 8 was so dumb. Don’t most people give their kids money so they can do something special during/before Prom if they need it? That’s almost as dumb as the trench coat question.

Well, Idk, I wouldn’t say parents gifting their kids with large sums of money for prom is necessarily a standard affair for every family.  But in 1999, parents giving their son $200 to go to the prom was definitely a fairly substantial monetary incentive on their part to encourage their reticent, introverted son to go forth and live it up for night. The Klebold’s weren’t the sort of parents to throw money at their kids. They didn’t want to raise snobs but children that understood the value of earning their way in the world.  Now a days, $200 is drop in the bucket when you consider that parent’s knee jerk buy their kids iphones which are extremely expensive. I wouldn’t be surprised if kids today are given large sums of money by their parents for prom just because that’s what their peers are receiving from their own parents and so everyone feels like they have to keep up with everyone else.  

At any rate, the fact that Dylan’s parents gave him money seems almost like a bribe for him to go to prom rather than simply a gift and because they wanted him to go so badly they dangled cash before him.  So, I think a question like this one could certainly be relevant and telling as to what Sue and Tom’s train of thought was in deciding to give Dylan the money. They certainly knew he didn’t want to go to prom as he’d never gone to any other dance before at Columbine and this was going to be his last opportunity for a ‘big hurrah’ dance before graduation. Talking him into going just wasn’t good enough, and might they have tried to nudge him to go just by talking about it?  It would’ve been interesting to hear if Sue said as such.  But no, they needed to make it attractive enough for Dylan with sort of bribe money which to them, was given as a gift so that he could go forth and have fun and socialize at the last big school’s organized party.  So in this regard, I do think it’s a valid question..  

I wonder what position Dylan was playing on the soccer team with Eric. Maybe that could have been the problem. Does it state anywhere what positions each of them played, especially Eric since he played more often?

No, his position was not stated. I’d say no matter what position he played he was uncoordinated at it at the time because Dylan was rusty and hadn’t played in years and therefore not the best teammate. But you know like with anything, practice makes perfect. Of course..having that one close friend’s positive encouragement certainly wouldn’t have hurt and could’ve motivated and encouraged Dyl to step up his game during his learning curve at the sport.
Just sayin’..

Susan didn’t get a nose job. Smiling makes the nose scrunched up and appear to look longer than it is, but in the interviews she was in recently, she has the same nose pretty much except she’s not smiling so wide like in those photos, and she aged and grew into it. :)

When a person smiles broadly, yes, the nose can tend to ‘scrunch up’ slightly so as to look shorter not longer. 

Mmm, I don’t know, this looks to me like a slight nose sculpting. We’re not talking a major nose job, mind you, but a chiseling here and there to give it an appearance of more refined definition. Sue has less of a curved hook on the bridge of her nose and it also appears less fleshy and bulbous (as in the first photo) and more pinched in in the nostril area.  

depressioners:

kleboldqueen:

Can we take a moment and appreciate Sue slaying Diane Sawyer?

Why the trench coat? Military industrial fashion was popular in the alt crowd, you petulant rube. Or has your tiny brain forgotten the 90s already?

– C

A favorite moment in this interview where Sue basically counters with a *shrug* “I used to dress different too at that age, meh, so what?” She basically shut down that ridiculous path Sawyer was going down. I was proud of Sue’s spunky retort. *applauds*