Tag: Vodka

“Okay, they listened to Marilyn Manson, but not like some people. They listened to him every once in a while. They listened to Nine Inch Nails. They listened to Rammstein.

They listened to Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM because of the beats. Because Dylan wanted to be a drummer. He didn’t even know what they were saying in Rammstein. He doesn’t speak German. He just liked the beat of the song. The same with Dr. Octagon, D.J. Spookie, all those techno bands. They’ve got these beats to them.”

– Devon Adams

(Who tends to view her friend Dylan through rose colored glasses…)

Source

Dylan was a typical Virgo,it seems like-quiet,shy,intelligent,and also self conscious? It seems to me like he was a typical Virgo

Dylan’s sun sign was Virgo and yes, I would agree with you that he came across a ‘typical’ Virgo. 🙂  The Sun Sign represents the self, one’s personality and ego, the spirit and what it is that makes the individual unique. It is essentially our identity and our face to the world. The motto of a Virgo would be “I analyze” and based on some of the posts I’ve been doing recently on Dylan’s philosophical ruminations, it’s obvious that Dylan had a natural propensity for analyzing thoughts and ideas in his head. Virgos seek perfection in themselves and others. They are inquisitive, logical,  methodical, modest, self-restraint, introverted, can be shy and cautious, curious. An intellectual at heart and may seem that they are not connected to their feelings, however, they figure out their feelings by using their head. The are selective when choosing friends and partners and so can seem aloof.  However, the fact that Dylan had quite a bit of Libran influence in chart tended to soften out any of his potential overly critical, anal retentive tendencies. Of course, his depression was a factor in making him more of a slacking lazy-butt where as otherwise he might naturally be more exacting and precise. i.e. the Dylan ‘font’ might look a little more easier to read.  Though you can see in the way he writes a book report or writes a journal entry that he has a certain manner of doing things consistently: date at the top right, Thought-Box at the bottom/middle left side of the page. So, he has a certain structure to the way he does things even if the handwriting was a bit on the sloppy side. 😉   But, yes, Dylan was the epitome of the quiet, introverted, intelligent guy with specific, discerning tastes in his ideal girl. 

Human Existence – March 31, 1997

In his first entry Dylan dwells on the past and describes how different he feels from the lives that jocks have. But he also brings up deeply philosophical themes of existence, the mind and human nature.

Everything Connects

“My existence is shit to me — how I feel that I am in eternal suffering, in infinite directions in infinite realities – yet these realities are fake — artificial, induced by thought, how everything connects, yet it’s all so far apart….& I sit and think…”

At first glance, Dylan means to say that his personal suffering was the consequences of his own thinking. People sometimes feel depressed, not because of true events, but because of their own negative perceptions of otherwise neutral or even positive events. Dylan indirectly questions the fabric of reality. The idea that thought induces reality is supported by the science of quantum mechanics: “As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality,” — in other words, magical thinking. Quantum science explains how matter and energy behave at the smallest levels that scientist can measure. A key concept of quantum science is that scientific observation directly influences the behavior of, for example, electrons and photons. A specific experiment called the Double Slit Experiment proves that certain ‘elements’ can behave as either waves of water or as particles of matter depending on whether a scientific instrument actively observed the individual elements. When the observing device is turned off, the elements behave as waves. When turned on, they behave as particles.

This means that human consciousness, in the form of a scientific observation, probably influences reality at quantum levels. The strangeness of this result left physicists wondering whether there exists a ‘real’ reality that can explain the behavior of quantum elements as either waves or particles. Albert Einstein believed in such a real reality, but his contemporary colleague Niels Bohr disagreed and concluded that reality is not real. “Observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it…We compel [the electron] to assume a definite position… We ourselves produce the results of the measurements.”

Dylan’s comment that “everything connects, yet it’s all so far apart” echoes statements by Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “What was scattered gathers, what was gathered blows apart,” and “From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony.”

Science of the Mind

“Science is the way to find solutions to everything, right? I still think that, yet I see different views of shit now – like the mind – yet if the mind is viewed scientifically…”

Eric Harris made a similar statement on April 21, 1998 that only “science and math are real”. Dylan and Eric accepted the scientific worldview in an otherwise religious America.

Yet if according to quantum science, the mind induces physical reality through the act of conscious observation, then what is the conscious mind, when viewed scientifically? On a biological level, according to philosopher Sam Harris who found support with the science of neurobiology, the conscious mind seats in the secondary brain that wraps around the ‘primitive’ primary brain, or the animal brain. But while we perceive to have free will, this sensation is the result of a cognitive dissonance which means that our primary brain executes commands before the secondary brain becomes aware of them. Our brains fool ourselves into believing that we make conscious decisions, while in reality our animal brain does. The conscious secondary brain merely rationalizes our subconscious choices ex post facto, after the facts.

Even spookier, neurobiologists have proven that, for example, when we ‘decide’ to move our index finger, the primary brain has already fired the electronic signal down our nerve paths before the secondary brain becomes aware of it. Nonetheless, the secondary brain believes to be the initiator of the movement, the source of cognitive dissonance. In this sense, people’s brains fool themselves into believing that they have free will. But what is the mind itself? Where does the sensation of awareness and consciousness come from? The answer has implications in terms of technological progress when we want to build robots that do not just possess artificial intelligence, but also have a conscious mind that can make moral decisions on it’s own account. Over a decade ago, philosophers such as Dan Dennet and scientists such as Jeff Hawkins brought popular attention to the scientific study of the mind.

Past, Present and Future

“A lot on the past though…I’ve always had a thing for the past – how it reacts to the present & the future — or rather vice versa.”

Dylan spent a great deal of his waking life dwelling on the past, on things that depressed him, such as the loss of important friendship or the monotonous school routines he endured at Columbine High.

In several places, he expressed the idea that past, present and future influence each other. One way to interpret this odd belief is from a philosophical point of view. As we grow older, we accumulate experiences and we develop our personality and emotions. We gain new insights and gain a better understanding of our own social realities. As a consequence, the view we have of ourselves changes over time, and we alter our interpretations of the past. As teenagers we may find fault in ourselves when a love interest rejects us, while as adults, we learn that others reject us because they fail to see the good in us, and that rejection therefore is not our fault.

How much we remember of our past selves also changes our perception. The mind is not a device that flawlessly records events, but one that produces sensations blurred by emotion and faulty memory. Who we are today depends on the narrative we tell of our past. Conversely, who we imagine to be in the future influences how we act today, which in tern affects how we see our past selves. For example, if I decide to become a CEO in the future, I may tell myself that I have always been interested in business eve since I was a kid, or that I was born to be a business leader. When we look at a picture of ourselves when we were a baby, we have to tell a story of how we grew up and became the adult we are today, but this story will be largely a fiction based on incomplete memories and wishful polish.

True Human Nature

“They don’t know beyond this world (how I do in my mind or in reality, or in this existence) yet we each are lacking something that the other possesses – I lack the true human nature that Dylan owned, & they lack the overdeveloped mind / imagination / knowledge tool.”

Everything we know about the world around us comes through our biological senses of smell, touch, sight, sound and taste.  Even when we use scientific equipment to supposedly observe reality without interference from human sense, we interpret those scientific results with our sense nonetheless.  It therefore makes sense that Dylan jumbled together the concepts of mind, reality and existence.  Everything we call reality exists only as an observation of the mind that processes our senses.  The image we have of our reality can therefore never be of any real reality.

In this statement, Dylan tells us how far he feels removed from ‘normal’ people, because of his ‘overdeveloped’ mind.  He means to say that normal people have a seemingly natural access to ‘true’ human nature, namely love, friendship and relationships.  But they lack the ability for deeper interpretations of the world around them.  Dylan would rather have been less intelligent and more intuitive.  He considers himself a sufferer of complicated intelligence and hyper awareness.

When he writes about “the true human nature that Dylan owned” he refers to an earlier remark “when Dylan Benet Klebold got covered up by this entity containing Dylan’s body”. It seemed that Dylan feels that he went through a transformation, from an ordinary human being into a person with an overactive mind.  At the same time, his newfound intellect, this ability to incessantly question the reality of the world around him, became a burden.

What does it mean when your intellect gets in the way of acting human?  If ignorance is bliss, what should the intellectual do?

Eternal Peace

“The thinking of suicide gives me hope, that I’ll be in my place wherever I go after this life… that I’ll finally not be at war with myself, the world, the universe–my mind, body, everywhere, everything at PEACE in me – my soul (existence).”

Life is war.  Dylan expressed his teenage inability to cope with life’s challenges.  Here he offered a hint of what he really means with the word existence: “(…) me, my soul (existence),”namely his own being, how he exists in the world among his peers.  Of course, in this context the word soul is as obscure as Dylan’s use of the word existence.

This gem of a book can be purchased on Amazon and you will be able to read the rest which includes Eric’s philosophy. I highly recommend it!

Part 1

Full Shit: (need still)

Dyan’s Wants/Needs Haul List drawn up sometime after the gun show in November ‘98 with the purchase of the double barrel and prior to the Tech 9 purchase, with a consideration of 2 Calicos as well.  He had the flask by Prom, April 17th.  I’m wondering if this is his second pair of trademark sunglasses after breaking the first?  I love the affectatious desire to have the goth finger armor  ( ‘no spikes’ as he mentions in the Full Shit Part 1 post) and how he is specific about wearing it on his ‘right middle’ finger rather than the most typical manner of wearing it on the index finger or ring finger.  It was actually pretty difficult finding a photo of a dude wearing it on the middle finger!  I’m sure he likely envisioned himself in the entire ‘Full Shit’ look complete with finger armor for NBK. Later though, I think he opted instead for  ‘punk gloves’.
Bad Ass VoDkA!

Finger armor – right middle 

Leather Duster

Uzi 9m

DB  (double barrel)

2 calicos

New sunglasses

Flask

marlboro-redsox:

I still kind of find it funny, that Dylan had this sticker on his car because he loved DJ Spooky ;you can tell it’s obvious those buildings are the twin towers with bombs landing on them, (I mean considering the twin towers were hit on what would be Dylan’s 20th birthday. AFTER Eric had mentioned hijacking planes and running them into New York.)

All of it is so queer, how it all played out :/  How some of this information is so quizzical now. Also, DJ Spooky is a black male, so if the whole “racism” thing were that relevant I have a feeling they would have purposely not liked Dj Spooky just because of that; and it’s obvious they didn’t play on that. 

Dylan Klebold on Existence – Part 1

(I just would like to preface here that I am in complete agreement/alignment with this author (!) – which is why I decided to share my find. 🙂 Also, like the author, I do not subscribe to Peter Langman and Jade Vega’s Schizotypal Disorder diagnoses of Dylan and find their criteria in relation to him pretty unsubstantial. This is Part 1 of this series and there will be more to come. So enjoy Dylan’s brilliant philosophical meanderings, decoded properly for once and not viewed as delusional, out-of-touch babble! )

————————————-

“Of all the words spoken, none comes quite as far as wisdom, which is the action of the mind, beyond all things that may be said.”
—Heraclitus, 535-475 BCE

Philosphers have wondered about the meaning of existence as early as written history. But what does it mean to exist beyond our daily life? One philosopher attempted to define existence itself. In his famous book Being and Time, German philosopher Martin Heidegger distinguished between Sein (being) and Dasein. The latter has no English translation but generally means ‘being there’ or ‘existence’. Existence was also a main topic throughout Dylan Klebold’s journal. In his writings, he refers to existence with possibly different meanings, but he generally considers existence to be property of the mind, e.g. existence of his self-aware thoughts and insights.

Dylan Bennet Klebold was born September 11, 1981. He kept a journal and left entries spanning through March 31st, 1997 and January 20th, 1999, totaling 14 entries, which include a separate document and one undated entry. Dylan wrote in a style very different from Eric Harris’, in a more inward looking manner about his depressions and his social life, exploring the meaning of topics such as existence, the mind, suicide and love.

Love plays an important part in Dylan’s writings. He feels very distant from the seemingly worry-free lives of his high school peers, the jocks who have relationship and friendships, but he finds their lives shallow and empty. In over half of Dylan’s entries Dylan writes about the difficulty of finding love, how much he desperately needs it, and spends a number of entries expressing his feelings for someone unnamed, someone who never came forward after the attacks. The lack of love and the emotional support he believed it would bring appears to be a major cause for his suicidal depression.

Dylan sometimes used made-up words. He calls himself the “everything-dweller” and the “true existor of the everything”. He blends words like “perceivations”, from perceive and perceptions, or forms new ones like “un-existable”. According to one source (Devon Adams), "Dylan was very smart. […] You could tell by talking to him his vocabulary was extensive,” so it seems possible that his linguistic gift pushed him to use words creatively.

But others came to the wholly different conclusion based on such distortions of language that Dylan suffered a schizotypal personality disorder. While most psychologists do not believe that anyone can assess a mental disorder merely based on someone’s writings, without every meeting the subject in person, Jade Vega concludes that Dylan met various criteria of schizophrenia. She mentions for example that Dylan displayed “social and interpersonal deficits […] and reduced capacity for close relationships”. But if that were true, why were Dylan and Eric Harris such close friends, and why had Dylan also been good friends with Zack Heckler in his early teens? Vega disregards this circumstantial evidence and even goes so far to conclude that Dylan showed “odd beliefs and magical thinking” for calling his classmates “zombies”.

Peter Langman also believed that Dylan suffered mental delusions, but I disagree. Dylan struggled with concepts of existence, reality and ‘being’ like many philosophers have done before him, and they too sometimes needed to invent new vocabulary to express their most abstract thoughts. The “magical thinking” Dylan supposedly displayed has more in common with Heidegger and the great Greek philosopher Heraclitus than with schizotypal delusion. I believe that Dylan did not suffer an immediate mental disorder – rather, he suffered from unrecognized genius.

One can only speculate, but if Dylan had been given the opportunity to grow a long grey beard, then his words might have been taken more seriously. When Heraclitus published his work at the oracle of Delphi, he was a voluntary mountain recluse in his fifties. Dylan, an involuntary social outcast, wrote his thoughts on existence at age fifteen and sixteen. A lifetime more of such thought experiments might have made him a great American philosopher.

A Virtual Book of Existences

The title of Dylan’s journal is as abstract as it’s contents. When we take into account that this personal document may have been a description of thought exercises and hypothetical situations, the contents should seem less odd. I will discuss or mention only parts from Dylan’s journal entries that I found meaningful, in chronological order, taken from the subset of all entries. Several entries were left out because they were personal love letters or otherwise not valuable enough for further discussion. I added my own subtitles for reference, although Dylan did title his entries:

Human Existence – March 31st, 1997 (15 years)
The Everything – April 15th, 1997 
Dimensions of Thought – May 21st, 1997
The Meaning of Love – February 2nd, 1998 (16 years)

A Teenage Philosophy of Awareness and Existence: Analysis of the Columbine Shooters’ Worldview by Mathijs Koenraadt

Do you think Dylan was ever sexually abused as a child? I think Sue mentioned this before but couldn’t find any proof, but as an abuse victim myself I see a lot of similar behavioral traits in Dylan. He was so depressed, secretive, had serious self loathing and incredibly low self esteem, a fear of abandonment and betrayal, constantly idealized/devalued people, and was so angry at the world. He had so many hangups about sex too, like he was dirty and ashamed after masturbation. What do you think

Well, you definitely make a good case for it. 🙂 It’s plausible that Dylan could’ve been sexually abused somewhere along the line possibly very early on in daycare or elementary school or maybe even middle school, where his depression began to take hold. However, even if that was the case, hypothetically speaking, Dylan would’ve buried that one so deep his parents would never have known about it – let alone Sue attempting to find some proof for it in hindsight. That is just one of those speculation that just could never be verified, unfortunately. The signs that you listed above which you relate to in your own personal experiences can also be exactly the same for someone who is not sexually abused. So, there in lies the problem for building a case more towards proving his signs as a bread crumb trail of sexual abuse.

Dylan was extremely shy since he was a young child. I tend to believe he was genetically predisposed to being this sort of hyper sensitive, timid, introverted kid from the get-go. Garden variety shyness is something kids generally tend to grow out of with maturity unless it’s an inherent factor of their personality. I recall Tom Klebold confessed he was very much like Dylan personality-wise and that he too was shy as a kid growing up. So, it’s in Dylan’s genes to have been this way. Dylan’s hyper sensitivity made him be naturally more cautious around others. Brooks Brown’s parents said it took a while for Dylan to warm up around them when he’d come over for a play date. I’m guessing Dylan was like this every time he’d come over: he’d have to rewarm up for 15 minutes or so every time before relaxing and being himself in their home. In social situations, Dylan automatically felt like he was being judged by others which is very typical of Avoidant Personality Disorder and so he constantly compared himself to others and how much easier or better everything seemed for his peers. At a certain point, in middle school, where kids are often pretty nasty and critical of one another and when all those hormones really beginning to kick in, Dylan’s self esteem began to nose dive, and the depression and deeper self loathing had began to take hold. The friendships he cultivated would’ve meant everything to Dylan because his own self worth, identity and personal value was closely tied through his ability to even have a friend (let alone friends) and maintain them so he would not feel entirely alone. So, his friendships defined him. In his own skewed perception, he felt he had very few friends, even though in reality, he had a decent amount of friends, and so the potentiality of abandonment and betrayal was a looming back burner fear. Dylan considered his glass half empty in his journal regarding friendships and the secret fear of abandonment: “I have no money, no happiness, no friends… Eric will be getting further away soon & I’ll have less than nothing… how normal.” – or – “[censored (likely Zach)] & censored (likely Devon) ] found a plateau to exist on…they walked up me to get to it. Nobody will help me… only exist with me if it suits them. I helped, why can’t they?” Of course, outwardly, no one in his circle of friends knew that this was one of Dylan’s perpetual fears as a sensitive shy person because he concealed it.

Dylan was angry at the world because he was frustrated with himself and jealous of others for having, what he thought, an easier go at life in comparison to his own self perceived struggle as “the outkast”. Dylan was shy, quiet and inhibited around people and especially around girls and particularly around girls he felt attraction to and so was hyper sensitive in their company. But Dylan was still that normal teenage dude with raging hormones and lustful thoughts and desires. When he was at home alone in his room, relaxing and being completely himself, he would indulge in porn and release his physical desires by way of fantasy. He found himself ‘going there’ with the sort of porn fantasies that were completely free of any sort of societal inhibition and when he was finished indulging for the day and was back in school as ‘the shy person’ it would have probably embarrassed the hell out of him in reality around the girl/s he felt attracted to in school. So, it became as though he had two distinct sides of himself: he compartmentalized his physical lustful desires separate from his more romantic ideals of pure true love where he envisioned himself in complete peaceful happiness with the girl/s of his dreams. As he became more at war with his natural impulses, he felt more guilty and shameful about his behavior. I would bet that his porn kinks started out mainstream tame but became more amplified, more extreme and hardcore the more he consciously tried to suppress indulging in his compulsions out of remorse shortly after having ‘given in’ to it. The seeking out of extreme bondage would have represented symbolically the act of being coerced or forced into sexual expression. Whether he saw himself as the one tying up the girl or whether the girl was tying up him is almost a moot point because bondage is about forcing or being forced for desires. In addition to that, he had begun to rebuke doing ‘human things’ and so at some point, he must have judged lustful behaviors as part of giving in to that weakness of humanity. Dylan felt ashamed that he was giving in to his impulses and eventually, according to his journal, stopped masturbation altogether even though the porn was unsuccessfully ‘thwarted’. His moral code of determination to purge his self perceived regretful sexual behaviors were almost monk-like. True Love was higher and of spiritual purpose and base lusts were kept at equal opposite distances of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

But again, the simple fact that Dylan was an intensely shy person who kept his personal conflicts internalized and hidden and didn’t really progress to having enough social experiences with the opposite sex, it’s not too impossible to see how he had acquired many of the signs mentioned in your ask – including a shame-based sexual hangup – and without any signs of sexual abuse. However, I do agree with you that sexual abuse could have been a factor – there is just no way to prove it. 🙂

what do you think the relationship was like between Dylan and Byron? Around the time of the shootings it seems like Byron and Dylan weren’t very close and that Byron had issues (drugs) therefore was not as close to his family. But what about their childhood?

In March ‘98, Dylan offered this about his brother in his Diversion report questionaire: Brother…isn’t involved in my life and in parantheses he wrote (not a problem.) I’m sure in the weeks leading up the massacre, Dylan probably felt even more disconnected and estranged from his brother who was 20 at the time. I get the sense that Dyl viewed his brother as having caused a lot of strife in the family to the point of making the whole family go to family counseling for Bryon’s drug issues. Bryon was probably pretty checked out and self involved and Dylan likely felt abandoned. I get the feeling he pretty much considered himself to be the only son and not the youngest with an older brother. It’s almost as if Dylan had decided to cut ties with his brother out of disappointment and resentment. Like Bryon was the deadbeat, abandoning brother and in return, Dylan snubbed him by eluding he was perfectly self sufficient without his brother as he offers in his response here. They were not close the way they may have been as younger kids in the past, and according to Dylan, his brother and extended family, treated him like the runt of the litter. We don’t really know how the two were in childhood. I would think they would’ve been likely closer but the age difference of 2.5 years might’ve caused Bryon to not be on the same page with his baby brother. We should find out more about this is Sue’s book – or one can hope! 🙂

Hi, I’m in the process of writing a columbine fan fiction like the disgusting human being that I am; and I was wondering if you could list some random facts and maybe point out a few of Eric and Dylan’s mannerisms? I want to capture their essence the best way possible and create a realistic experience for my readers. 😬

My suggestion to you as a writer in the driver’s seat, is to do your own research and study the boys’ mannerisms – because ultimately, your writing is based on your own interpretation of the two dudes in connection with your story line.

Here are several reference links for you to begin your research.

Good luck and feel free to post your fanfiction on the tag! 🙂