He found it painful to reflect that in our day intellect and sensibility, thought and art, had been made to confer status and to generate snobbery.
Lionel Trilling - The Middle of the Journey
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Best Vengeance
Wherever you go, everyone wants to control you and belittle you even or rather especially when they are half as competent as you are at doing anything. They anger you, boss you around, tell you off and explain mundane illogical things as though they are the rulers of the earth as if they were gods and you were born into their small and petty world. They want to infuriate you, make you feel helpless, make you feel small, they play a dirty game of withholding that which they could give you because it's that which you desire. They feel they are better people for degrading better people, and they smile at your frustration and your agony.
There is a way to take revenge other than blowing up the places they work at, or ridiculing them (although both ideas sound great). The most effective way is not to let them get to you and not to let them frustrate you or annoy you and even if you want to fight them, fight them with peace, fight them with an understanding of their sick and cruel nature. Fight them as you fight a disease within a person, with abhorrence to the disease rather than the person, with knowledge that sometimes they are victims and that's why they cause these casualties. Fight them with the knowledge that if they do not get to you, it makes you better, and disables the disease.
If you can control yourself and smile upon their cruelty rather than have it get to you, and be immune to their mindless game plays even if it costs you time, even if it costs you something, then even if you've lost, they've lost as well which means you've won something at least.
One thing remains, and it is perhaps the most difficult to accept even for me, as I have been targeted by these kinds of people numerous times. Whenever you're in a position of power over people, do not be the same way they were with you, even if they themselves make way into your world and you have power over them. You must treat them with fairness and kindness and be a just god in your world unlike they've been. It is the only fair way to take revenge even if they do not understand it and even if you yourself do not understand it. By logic, it would take thousands upon thousands of words to express why this would be a victory, and even then it might not seem convincing, but there's a feeling I have within me, that words do not describe well, that tells me that this is the way to win if it were a competition, this is a way to repay their evil.
A feeling like this can be ridiculed, debated, rejected or even neglected, but the one thing going for it is that it can be felt. It can be felt by someone who doesn't understand how it all adds up, who can see a victory in retaining goodness when all others have failed to and cannot recognize it anymore. It's a feeling that's so deep that not even the greatest can reach it, not even the most evil can beat it, it's their ultimate enemy, and all their actions are determined to reach that core and tear it down, but just like the good man cannot explain it or reach it by any logical means except by feeling, so also the evil ones cannot destroy it by actions if we do not let those actions get to us.
There is a way to take revenge other than blowing up the places they work at, or ridiculing them (although both ideas sound great). The most effective way is not to let them get to you and not to let them frustrate you or annoy you and even if you want to fight them, fight them with peace, fight them with an understanding of their sick and cruel nature. Fight them as you fight a disease within a person, with abhorrence to the disease rather than the person, with knowledge that sometimes they are victims and that's why they cause these casualties. Fight them with the knowledge that if they do not get to you, it makes you better, and disables the disease.
If you can control yourself and smile upon their cruelty rather than have it get to you, and be immune to their mindless game plays even if it costs you time, even if it costs you something, then even if you've lost, they've lost as well which means you've won something at least.
One thing remains, and it is perhaps the most difficult to accept even for me, as I have been targeted by these kinds of people numerous times. Whenever you're in a position of power over people, do not be the same way they were with you, even if they themselves make way into your world and you have power over them. You must treat them with fairness and kindness and be a just god in your world unlike they've been. It is the only fair way to take revenge even if they do not understand it and even if you yourself do not understand it. By logic, it would take thousands upon thousands of words to express why this would be a victory, and even then it might not seem convincing, but there's a feeling I have within me, that words do not describe well, that tells me that this is the way to win if it were a competition, this is a way to repay their evil.
A feeling like this can be ridiculed, debated, rejected or even neglected, but the one thing going for it is that it can be felt. It can be felt by someone who doesn't understand how it all adds up, who can see a victory in retaining goodness when all others have failed to and cannot recognize it anymore. It's a feeling that's so deep that not even the greatest can reach it, not even the most evil can beat it, it's their ultimate enemy, and all their actions are determined to reach that core and tear it down, but just like the good man cannot explain it or reach it by any logical means except by feeling, so also the evil ones cannot destroy it by actions if we do not let those actions get to us.
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