An Inconvenient Truth: Most likely to be a Serial Killer

One of the best parts of finishing freshman year was creating on and voting for Academy superlatives. Through our Facebook group, my class listed 'most likely to work on wall street,' 'most likely to be a teen mom,' and 'most likely to get 3 hours of sleep in the next 3 years,' the one which I unfortunately ended up winning. As we've read Heart of Darkness, I discovered one to be added to this years life: most likely to be a serial killer or a psychopath.

A main part of our discussion of the story revolved around how far people can be pushed, and who is the must susceptible to losing humanity and their sanity. Mr. Kurtz, who had been described as a intellectual and genius, with wondrous talents in writing, painting, entrepreneurship, and speaking was pushed to his limits before a common Russian man, or the majority of other Europeans. Did his intelligence, while helpful at home, serve as a detriment in Africa?

What really struck me was when someone said sometimes you can push yourself to the edge, and find wonderful new things to explore at the heart of yourself, but sometimes it's empty, cold, barren. That's a scary thought, and the folks who want to reach that edge are usually the learners and the students. We’ve all heard modern day examples of Kurtz’s, where the criminal is a genius and has done good things but takes one wrong turn, because their brain overshadows a sense of right and wrong. Voldemort, from Harry Potter such a character, as described by Garrick Olivander in the first book, “After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great.”ile helpful at home, serve as a detriment in Africa?

I consider myself to be a relatively smart person, and I know that I have strong morals and opinions. Reading this book and hearing these stories make me question myself, am I really as selfless as I’d like to be? How would I react if I was put in these situations? Would I keep my restraint, or would I lose it on a heartbeat? Am I going to be ruthless from knowledge? The scariest part is that I have no idea.

In addition, there’s the possibility that my classmates could exhibit

these tendencies in all of their glory and brilliance. There’s a stereotype about Academy kids that we’ll all go on to change the world and make it a better place, but in 30 classes of 30 kids, has there ever been a bad egg? I consider my peers to be some of my closest friends, and I’d never doubt any of them, but could I be misinterpreting someone? Could someone in the class of 2014 end up on America’s Most Wanted instead of most successful?

While these thoughts are scary, both my classmates and myself are if anything rational and logical people, and we care. If an issue were to ever arise, I have faith that we could help the struggler through his/her issues. Kurtz was all alone in the Kongo, without any help or familiarity, but we will always have each other.