the burden of overestimating threat

Violence can be both good and bad. Your gut is right now killing thousands of bacteria, this is biochemical war, it goes on all the time, and we would not be here without. Even if we would like to, we can’t but call it good. But violence can be cruelty.

Generally, people tend to like to refrain from violence. We like to be good. But refraining from violence leads to cruelty. Unavoidably. But it isn’t so easy to see the why.

on ontologic violence

How would you like me to punch you? Not a lot, am i right?

And how about i cut your hand off? Worse, right?

Now what if i anesthezise you and then cut your hand off? Suppose you feel no pain at all. Is it Oll Korrekt? Not, right?

This is important. You must understand violence is not pain. You must understand it, because you need to get better at using violence, and the highest form of violence is completely different from pain: Ontologic Violence.

Fear, the fence maker (an study for Off The Lizard)

I have been frail for a big part of my life.

I have been brought to tears, again and again, by the lamest of teasing. Any mention of father issues could pierce through my armour. How predictable. And how it hurt! Every single time. I was defenceless and sad and puny. And from the bottom of the pit it is not possible to pretend there’s poetry in frailty, that there is some value in being the shy one. You can’t pretend this is right, you just can’t, because this is not pain, it is not sorrow, it is a deeper suffering than that, it is to know that you are the worst. You are everything that is opposite of good. This is not something someone told you, it is not an opinion, it is. It just is.

So, from the bottommost you know there is only one direction, there is only one thing. There is only up. This defines existence.

And to crawl your my way from that to the point you can face life on equal footing, the point where you can look in the eye of the tiger, is a long road. And along this road you must learn some tricks. And it often comes to pass that someone who fell and then learned to rise again, as he had to learn those tricks, he rises higher than other people. He’s firmer in his self-standing, because he knows he did it by himself. So i want to teach, or talk about, one of those tricks, something that helps me, something that makes me stronger.

such a subtle power

On Snatch someone asks Del Toro “Do you know something I don’t?” and he answers “I probably know a lot you don’t!” Such a demonstration of power, and still, such a subtle power!

Because i know something you don’t does not make me better than you, it certainly ain’t as good as having a cake you don’t, or a gun, it is nothing i can use or feel, and still, “I know a lot you don’t” is a scare. But why should it be?

If you know something i don’t, say you know where there is a hidden cake, then this is completely useless unless you act on your info, and exactly as you act you reveal your secret. You have to show me the hiding place to take the cake.

But knowing something you don’t is something more finesse than a secret.