My friend Sinclair was not a monster from the beginning. He was a kind and sympathetic person. Though he grew up in a very strict religious household that dealt some heavy psychological trauma on him, he still rose up from it and let it strengthen him. He stopped holding a grudge against his parents and even understood why they raised him that way. Hell he even stopped holding a grudge against his closest group of friends (that I wasn’t a part of at the time) that left him and didn’t even bother staying in touch altogether. I was still there for him though, we were there for each other.
But everyone has their breaking point and Sinclair reached his. You see, he didn’t tell me everything. He held in a lot of agony inside that was later revealed in his journal, which I was given to by his parents after his passing. I decided to share his journal entries with you to show what pushed him into committing the horrible act he did, that unfortunately and unsurprisingly has been forgotten by everyone except those he directly impacted with his actions.
This is the first journal entry in his descent into the abyss:
03/5/2023: You know, I never saw myself as some saintly philosopher, but I’m honestly losing faith in romantic relationships. Melissa, the girl I had a crush on, well I fucking blew it. I assume she just saw me as a friend, but now she sees me as a boring asshole, which is understandable. I pretty much got in an argument about how the human condition was designed to be shitty from the start. She believes it’s capitalism and white men’s fault. I understand she has had bad experiences with men, but I pretty much let my emotions get the better of me and it ended up with me telling her to fuck off in a very horrible way. Fucking hell, why am I like this?
03/7/2023: What the hell, Melissa? I know I fucked up but you decided to put a curse on me and everyone I care about? Did I threaten you or anyone you love in any way? No. I was in the process of letting go but you fucking crossed the line. Call me schizophrenicaly superstitious, but yes, I do believe in curses.
03/11/2023: These long walks are helping a bit destress myself, but it only lasts as long as the walk. Every time I get back home I just get emerged back into this bottomless lake of hate and despair. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I should start drinking or smoking again. Then again, I’m not a fan of drinking cause I don’t like making myself feel stupid. I’ll get a pack of cigs on the next walk.
03/12/2023: I’m thinking I should take a break from doomscrolling, but honestly I can’t stop it. I need to know what’s going on in the world. I’m not a huge believer in astrology but I do admit there’s some truth in it. I’m a Virgo and it’s true, I’m a knowledge addict, even if it devastates me or destroys me mood. I need to know, whatever the cost.
03/13/2023: My old online friend from the Midwest took his own life yesterday. I kind of blame myself for not talking to him enough but I haven’t been in the best of moods, but that’s a horrible excuse. I’m such a horrible friend, fucking hell. I’m sorry, man, that I wasn’t there for you when you needed someone to talk to. Please be at peace, you’re for sure as hell in a better place than I am.
03/14/2023: The universe either really fucking hates my guts or is trying to see how much stress I can endure.
03/20/2023: I started abusing hallucinogens. It’s not the best coping mechanism for all the constant barrage of shit that’s been happening, but it’s better than nothing imo. Some of my siblings and their families were killed in their homes. I guess Melissa’s curse is legit. That or just the world being the fucked up place it’s always been. I’ve been smoking more often. Blythe told me he wanted to hang out tonight, hearing about what happened, but I told him I need some time alone by myself. He’s a good friend, but shit like this, I need time alone to process all of it.
04/13/2023: I’m noticing a pattern with everything. So I’ve been reading books of atrocities done in history, from the mass murders in Babi Yar and Rape of Nanjing to every thinkable horrors humankind has inflicted on its own kind in every nation. There’s a similar pattern with the perpetrators and the people of the world: apathy and ignorance. I know Twitter and Facebook are not the best places for reasonable discussions or even rational people, but what the hell is wrong with people? I bring up these things that they themselves admit they never cared to know about. Not only they never cared to know about it, but they then turn the discussion into America being this monster of atrocity and how every other nation is completely innocent or less evil.
Are they so blind to how every country is capable of evil? And get this, they started blaming how all of the problems and atrocities are done by white men. They say that every country that isn’t run by white men is better. Have they not seen the genocides, the rapes, the abuse and the murder in the East nations as well. I understand that the U.S. isn’t pure, but neither is every other country ran and populated with people. It’s becoming more apparent that barely anyone wants to admit that the problem isn’t rich white dudes in suits, it’s something deeper and more powerful inside us all.
04/22/2023: I stopped using hallucinogens. I got burnt out on them. So after a week of a tolerance break, I decided to meditate, not to relax but I went in with a purpose, with a question, seeking answers to my question: What is the purpose of the world of humanity?
I was given the answer. I can’t write it down because I believe nobody should know the truth, not yet. And I feel like I would be doing something terrible if I did so, something very terrible. Like some unknown unseen gods are making sure I obey this order. And I’ll obey, because I fear what would happen if I spilled the truth.
05/29/2023: I met a girl, she was really chill and liked weed as well. Why do I keep having romantic feelings? Maybe I shouldn’t get too close but idk, she’s so beautiful and understanding. Please, me, don’t fuck this up.
06/24/2023: I fucked it up. I opened up to her and info/trauma dumped onto her. I’m so sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I think I’m slowly losing it. Losing control of my actions. But I feel in control though. I don’t know. Just stay safe and be happy for me, dude. Just forget me and move on. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore like this.
06/25/2023: I haven’t hanged out with Blythe for what feels like months. I hope he’s okay. I just feel like I shouldn’t be around anyone anymore. I keep hurting the people I care about even when I don’t mean to. Or do I? If something happens, it happens for a reason. Everything happens and exists for a reason. I was shown that. I was shown that reason and it terrifies me with such an infinite abysmal despair that I’ve never experienced before. I know subconsciously that I suppress it, but it resurfaces on its own will. And it’s happening more frequently as the weeks pass by. I dread what will happen when it becomes never-ending.
06/26/2023: I went through an entire pack in one day due to the panic and existential-terror attack I just had. What the hell is going on? I can’t unsee what I was shown. I can’t get it out. I can’t escape this. I can’t and I will never be able to. This is all supposed to happen. They demand it to happen, so it happens. Nobody can escape this.
09/21/2023: I keep seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing everything play out as they demand it. These things, these gods that defy time, defy space, defy reason, defy even reality itself, they’re my masters and I am their puppet. I’m ready to do what I was made to do. I have a semi-automatic rifle with enough ammo to do what I must. This is my final journal entry.
There is no hatred inside of me anymore, but this primordial cold calculative focus. All the pain, the terror, the hopelessness, the torture, the abuse, the violation, the injustice, the absurdity, the monotony, all of it is swallowed by a vast fathomless maw of apathy. And humankind is an extension of that apathy to its very own insanity. Humanity cannot survive without its indifference and hollow justifications to and for its own suffering. The species will continue to be uncaring to it all because it needs to be, it was designed to be, it is destined to be, all for a purpose that would leave you as a monster like it did me. Goodbye.
And that’s it. That’s the final entry he wrote on the day he shot and killed 10 people. I doubt you even heard about the shooting due to how many mass shootings there have been and how media coverage of it usually gets drowned out by celebrity gossip, movies and political coverage. I guess it makes sense. Sinclair had a very vague unclear motive as to why he carried out a mass shooting during sundown. So I guess that makes it worthless for the news companies to exploit that for whatever agenda they have. Just mention it for a day and move on like it never happened.
But the families of the victims will remember it always. I will remember it always. And I will remember that Sinclair was not a monster from birth. From my experiences with him as a friend and reading his journal entries, it seems like the world pushed him past his limits. I do admit, I don’t know what to make of him talking about what he was shown by these gods he spoke of. I want to chalk it up to mental illness, but he wasn’t schizophrenic like he thought he was. Hell he didn’t even get diagnosed with schizophrenia. He didn’t hallucinate except for when he used hallucinogens of course. He didn’t even abuse them that much to fuck up his mind to that state of developing schizophrenia.
However, I guess it’s easier for people to ignore the possibility that you don’t have to be mentally ill or with psychosis to experience what he did, with those gods and whatever they showed him. Nothing is ever black and white and appears as its surface shows to us. The material and physical isn’t all that exists. We have to go deeper to see the world that the surface of the physical and material hides. We have to explore those depths to see why and how things are the way they are. And understandably a lot of people don’t want to do that because it doesn’t align with their beliefs and they like things being simple rather than complex.
I just can’t help though, that I’m being watched by something incomprehensibly vast. Like countless immensely huge eyes that are intangible yet there. I did some more digging into Sinclair’s things and started seeing the connections he saw as well. I’ve started having these vivid horrifying nightmares of vast dark shapes in the sky and horizon. Eyes from above and below, eyes that don’t belong to any living thing of this Earth. And I feel tendrils inside of every nano-particle and atom of my beings. Tendrils like strings.