Me as a jungle gem
I don't know about you, but I felt like making a contribution to Gratuitous Violence when I got up this morning; that is, something in me would commit some violent act for no discernable reason.
Indeed, I cannot say that I was mad about anything in particular, say, angry at the authorities who are depriving people of the few liberties they have won over the past two centuries in order to save them from the coronavirus, destroying their livelihoods in the process so they can vent their anger over a Great Depression by engaging in mass murders worldwide to revive the economy.
No, my inexplicable urge to do something violent, like go out and behead someone at random or blow up the police station or smash Macy's windows had no motive that I wanted to know about. Something inside me wanted it kept secret. I understand that if the truth be told, this is quite normal.
My father told me during my juvenile delinquency that I have a Conflict With Authority. He had suffered from it himself. He reenlisted during the war. serving as an MP and drill sergeant before he got mad and was demoted for rebelling against authority. At least he was understanding enough not to smack me around when I acted up, I think because I reminded him of my mother, who died of polio before I was a year old and whom he promised to take care of me; he later truly said he should have left me with an orphanage. He was one of those old-school, domineering dads who scared the hell out of kids although he did not hit them, and he frightened the hell out of mothers and stepmothers who in turn took the abuse out on the kids, especially the boys. No thank you said I to myself and ran away to Chicago at age 13 never to return. I have been running away from the home I never had ever since, particularly when on the verge of success in whatever endeavor I chose to escape from the reality of how miserable I was.hanf
In any event, I turned my anger at others against myself, meaning I am more suicidal than homicidal in the final analysis, yet I have indeed been loved enough to love myself hence curtail my violent tendency. I sublimated my propensity to violence by retreating to reading, eventually preoccupying myself with the arts of dance, drama, and writing. The last was my first and last resort, lately in the form of diatribes and rants against authority.
Are not the creative arts essentially rebellious, that is, existential rebellions against being? I think Nietzsche on the one hand and Camus on the other were right about that, don't you? “Live dangerously,” said the former, and “Create dangerously,” said the latter. “Only artists hate this slovenly life in borrowed manners and loosely fitting opinions and unveil the secret, everybody's bad conscience, the principle that every human being is a unique wonder,” said Nietzsche. “To create today is to create dangerously,” said Camus. “Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of the age that forgives nothing.”
Ambiguity therefore skepticism makes received authority easy dialectical game. My fellow critics generally leave me be as I have a reputation for “dangerous intelligence,” as one said after remarking that I could have a great career as a novelist; his way of calling me a liar for disagreeing with him.
What my critics do not know is that I am more than tolerant: I am basically a kind man, a bum at the bottom of my being who smiles a lot, and, when outraged, a rooster who backs down, a cowardly lion in search of courage. I favor the underdog whom I most vehemently disfavored when he was top dog. I eschew the overwhelming celebration of violence overflowing gratuitously from the media toilets although I do enjoy a well done satire on the subject now and then. Most violence is unnecessary when called for, perchance to naturally advance the race.
Most of all, I abhor gratuitous violence. Therefore I wrote an essay on the subject:
Like you I was passive violent. Always sticking my nose in where it shouldn't have been and taking chances that later would have considered me to be "accident-prone." In reality my best defense, not cowardice, but carefully considered retreat… Sometimes slow, and sometimes fast, save me from corporal punishment many times when I stepped where the gods had not ordained.
But it is about your behavior. Your writing, is provocative and violent in that respect. But I enjoy that kind of well thought out violence over waking up bored with existence every day. And there's nothing better than literary violence to perk one up. One of your steps into that realm would be nice to read here--I didn’t.
Ron