This is going to be kind of long, but I feel this is something that I should just let come out. After seeing the article about the Col shooting this morning, I noticed it's main point of attention drawing was to cite the man as a wanna-be joker. This made me both hurt, disgusted, and infuriated. Get it? Anyway, I feel like spouting out a paragraph or two about things the Joker truly stands for, and how people like this shooter can completely misinterpret his point, and the lessons his persona can teach. Obviously, the Joker is a very violent man. He kills without thought, emotion, or sometimes even purpose. To call him insane is an understatement in itself. It is believed that he cares only for himself, and that anyone else in the world is there for him either to use, kill, or extort(and then kill). The Joker is unreasonable, irrational, and beyond explaining even to himself. However, the Joker understands one thing more than any other person ever can or will, sanity(or insanity, depending on your perspective). He understands the true nature of the human psyche, and all the strings attached to it. The Joker carries a type of philosophy that I believe is truly the epitome of freedom from the ego, and from all emotional trauma or feelings of incompleteness in one's life. This is, of course, excluding the evil nature of the character. I do not believe being a psycho serial killer will open your mind to nirvana. The nature of the the Joker revolves around that of total disregard, for everything. Imagine being in the mindset that everything in life that had ever mattered to you or ever will, didn't. You weren't bound by the desire to grow up, to get a job, to be successful, to find a mate, to fit into society, to make money, to be happy, or sad, or to need anything. You could just as easily stand in front of a speeding bus, or lose your favorite belonging, or stub your toe, or witness the end of the world and all existence beyond it, you are still truly free. Nothing can control you or the way you feel. You could be the most self-aware, limitless mind of your species, and have the strongest will to back it up. Anything you wanted to do, or get, or see, or feel, or create is possible, given that there is no consequence that could take away what you know. No fear of death, destruction, loss of identity, being taken advantage of, mistreatment, mistakes, ect ect. Not because these things can't happen to you, but because you know that your existence and mentality is not controlled by the only strings these things have on you, fear. None of this has to be violent either. Say for example you are terribly afraid of seeing the day your parents die. It looms over you like a stormcloud, and holds you back from always feeling the 100% you should. While the actual Joker character may take this as a reason kill his parents, we can use this idea of emotional and mental freedom to teach ourselves that not only is your parents dying inevitable, but allowing it to hold you back is allowing its fear to control you. This hurts more than just you too, people can see when something is disturbing another person. Just as easily as you can tell your friend had a bad day at work, or that the person who used to love you doesn't act the same anymore, others can tell when somethings is eating at you, and those close enough to see these things will feel your hurt the same you do. Loved ones do not want other loved ones hurting, and by allowing yourself to be withdrawn by somethings as silly as fear or anxiety is going to bring down those around you. It is up to you to know yourself, and know that you can feel how you chose to feel, simply by having the right perspective. Those that are nothing but negative nancies that can't help but find something to be depressed about are doing it to themselves. If they can't take the initiative to look for something to be happy about in the face of an infinite onslaught of negative things, then they are caving in and forfeiting to the most basic of human/animal instincts. The fear is not just fear though. You wouldn't be afraid of losing your favorite blanket as a child if you didn't believe that you could keep it forever. The DESIRE and ATTACHMENT are what is causing the fear of loss in the first place. If, as a child you could understand that even without that blanket you can still give yourself the safe, secure and comforting feeling you depeneded on it for, than need for that blanket would never have been there, and you would no longer be manipulated by the fear of losing it. YOU can ALWAYS feel the way you NEED to feel, even if you think you can only get that feeling from some outside source. The desire for the feeling is internal, and personal. Nobody else or anything else in the world can understand exactly what you need and/or want. So if you are allowing yourself to be controlled by that, it is on you to figure out what it is and resolve it. The Joker is an important character not because he can teach you that it's funny to shoot up a theater full of people, but because he can teach you that anything is anything, and you can set yourself free from the world and it's pressures by choosing to feel positive in the face of negative.