Quarter 3 Blog 1

The book I'm reading this is quarter is called The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life. His Own. by David Carr. It's about Carr's journey through drugs. He interviews different characters from his past. Not only does Carr tell an intriguing story, but he also ties in philosophical questions about humans in general. In the first part of the reading he talks about how we protect ourselves from ourselves. Carr explains his technique, "There was That Guy, a dynamo of hilarity and then misery, and then there is This Guy, the one with a family, a house, and a good job as a reporter and columnist for The New York Times. Connecting the two will take a lot more than typing" (9). Coping with the some of the horrific things he has done would be very difficult because he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. So in order to live he must separate the two. This made me think if I do the same thing without even noticing it and I figured out that I do indeed. It is a human instinct to protect ourselves at any costs and if that includes ignoring our bad parts, we subconsciously do it.

Separating ourselves in to different parts works fine, that is until you must face what you have done. This is what Carr notices when he retraces his step. One of the first stories, and the one the book is named after, is one about a gun. In a drug induced rage, Carr races over to his friends house intent on hurting him for something he's done. Carr bangs on his door and when his friend threatens to call the police, breaks a window to get at the phone. Being high, Carr doesn't recall many of the details, but he does remember a gun that his friend was threatening him with. Or this is what he believes. When he went back to talk to his old friend Carr tells him the story of the gun. His friend's response was surprising, "'I never owned a gun,' he said. 'I think you might have had it'" (10). Who Carr thought he was, was false. This rattles him, he's not sure if anything he remembers is real or just a figment of his mind. If anything, this is the scariest thing; not being able to know what or where you have been. You forget your history, that's terrifying.