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shadowlightAnger: Frontier Justice in the Modern Age
December 4th, 2009
Current Location:Cheyenne, Wyoming
I get my temper from my Dad. That sounds like a paradox. He almost never got mad, but when he did... yikes. The sheer rarity of it was a shock, but it wasn't at all halfway or pansy. It was full strength. There is a tendency to assume that those you admire are somehow more perfect than you, less subject to the murky undercurrents of human nature. Living the life I have these last five years, holding down a job in the real world, dealing with the public, I frequently feel these flares of anger at people who just don't seem to get it... the shoplifting, vandalizing punks who think they're smarter than the rest of us because they don't care about anyone else; the ones who spray invisible lubricant on the floor in the middle of the store, apparently just for fun; the ones who think they shouldn't have to follow the rules; the people who want to shame me into not doing what I don't have any choice but to do because the rules I need to follow don't make any sense and don't really work. I get angry. often. more than I have since I was a teenager. After a few minutes, I get a grip on myself and don't really do any of the things I thought about doing. Did Dad feel flares like these, and simply didn't express them? I don't know. It wasn't something I was comfortable talking to him about. After all he did, how hard he tried, to keep his children safe from corrupting influences... how could I ever let him see what a monster I really was? Maybe he got angry. maybe. Either way, the sentiment behind my fantasies of beating up shoplifters is very much what he taught me, his John Wayne sense of morality, that some are innocents that need to be protected, but some people are scum, that need to be punished, or they'll never stop exploiting everyone else. Rationally, abstractly, I'm more liberal and forgiving than that. Maybe vigilante fantasies come naturally to those who are relatively powerless in a given circumstance, a natural psychological imperative. Maybe there's just something about getting your hands dirty that makes you want to curl them into fists.
December 4th, 2009
Current Location:Cheyenne, Wyoming
I get my temper from my Dad. That sounds like a paradox. He almost never got mad, but when he did... yikes. The sheer rarity of it was a shock, but it wasn't at all halfway or pansy. It was full strength. There is a tendency to assume that those you admire are somehow more perfect than you, less subject to the murky undercurrents of human nature. Living the life I have these last five years, holding down a job in the real world, dealing with the public, I frequently feel these flares of anger at people who just don't seem to get it... the shoplifting, vandalizing punks who think they're smarter than the rest of us because they don't care about anyone else; the ones who spray invisible lubricant on the floor in the middle of the store, apparently just for fun; the ones who think they shouldn't have to follow the rules; the people who want to shame me into not doing what I don't have any choice but to do because the rules I need to follow don't make any sense and don't really work. I get angry. often. more than I have since I was a teenager. After a few minutes, I get a grip on myself and don't really do any of the things I thought about doing. Did Dad feel flares like these, and simply didn't express them? I don't know. It wasn't something I was comfortable talking to him about. After all he did, how hard he tried, to keep his children safe from corrupting influences... how could I ever let him see what a monster I really was? Maybe he got angry. maybe. Either way, the sentiment behind my fantasies of beating up shoplifters is very much what he taught me, his John Wayne sense of morality, that some are innocents that need to be protected, but some people are scum, that need to be punished, or they'll never stop exploiting everyone else. Rationally, abstractly, I'm more liberal and forgiving than that. Maybe vigilante fantasies come naturally to those who are relatively powerless in a given circumstance, a natural psychological imperative. Maybe there's just something about getting your hands dirty that makes you want to curl them into fists.