Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Suicide and evil

Suicide is always taken so seriously in this culture. What ever happened to Durkheim’s theory that any reasonable intellectual would prefer self inflicted death to a self aware life? Sometimes it’s just the most logical choice. I was facing a seven year prison sentence in Russia.

The samurai say that one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths.

Seven.

Even severing femoral, carotid, jugular and wrists wasn’t sufficient. A rambling Soviet era ambulance got me to Skalifasovskaya hospital in time for me to be patched up. I woke up thirsty. A thirst that felt like it would never be quenched and a kid who was supposed to be a nurse telling me she couldn’t give me any water because of my throat injuries.

Sweet talking the ladies is a bitch when you are in that state but I felt that my life depended on it. I probably would have died of dehydration in that room if I hadn’t managed to get a couple of incredibly small glasses of water out of her. What a charmer.

When I was eight I had a friend named Alex. Alex had the whole NFL get up: Steelers jacket, hat, gloves and scarf. He ran a little funny. I didn’t see Alex at recess but he always came back beat up, hat askew, jacket half open, looking scared and sad and alone. This was my first experience of rage, and calculations of revenge.

Alex would never tell me who, how whatever. So one day I asked him if I could borrow his jacket at recess. I oohed and aahed over it, he didn’t know I hated the Steelers or maybe he did. I donned the whole shebang: hat pulled low over the eyes, I loped off. When I was out of his sight I began to imitate his cockeyed run, goofy, projecting fear and weakness, like a beacon.

They honed in, I kept my head down until I felt hands on me, a little longer, the first blow, the point of no return. I enjoyed their terror when I looked up, confused, afraid, regretful, sorry, sad. I enjoyed punishing them, I thought of Alex’s sad face, I made them cry, I thought of his poor little hat sideways on his had and kicked and stomped and ground them into the playground dirt.

When the Christians say that we are born evil listen well, an eight year old child is capable of relishing the pain of other children. When I think of it now it still feels good. I wish I would have beat them harder, I wish they would have been hospitalized, or dead. The sober judgment of age has brought no regret, only sorrow that I was too merciful.

Man is capable of anything when he is on the side of right and justice.

You think Al-Queda has any doubt about the righteousness of their mission? No less than Hitler, Stalin, or Bush. We don’t do evil for the sake of evil, we do it in the name of good. I’m sorry to say that I would probably have been in the SS, the Party, just as I was ready to go in the Marines at 17 and again after 9-11. Ultimately who gives a shit who’s right? We just want to win.

Everybody whines and complains about the other side being evil, we’re all evil bitches, the sooner we realize that the better.

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