I am currently reading a book about the history of conspiracy theories, which naturally led me to think about those emails I received. I'm still receiving emails, I'm just electing not to post them here, since they are similar to the last ones.
In any case, I was thinking about those conspiracy theories and I've come to a theory about them: they are all about control or, rather, lack thereof.
A lot of people don't feel in control of their own lives, for good reason. People die everyday due to circumstances that are out of their control -- sickness, violence, accidents. So some people invent an invisible enemy, a boogeyman that does control our lives. It's not random chance that kills us, it is Them with a capital T. They control every aspect of our lives, but at least someone is in control, right? At least we're not living in an out-of-control world.
Hell, even I'm guilty of thinking like this. Making this blog in an attempt to find some reason for these shootings, when I should have just realized that the reason was "because, just because."
Because there is no invisible boogeyman. There is nobody pulling the strings. Life is a chaotic series of events. Or, as Terry Pratchett put it, "things just happen, what the hell." So our view of an ordered universe itself is actually just a civilized illusion.
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