Why I'm a pacifist

At Ben's party tonight we played football. Though I'm not much on offense -- can't catch the ball worth shit -- it was observed that I am somewhat adept at tackling. Not from any skill or experience (I played soccer and basketball when I was younger, but never football), but simply from an almost bloodthirsty tenacity and persistence. Simply put, when I decide to take somebody down, either they go down, or I do. There is no compromising, no meeting-at-half-way, no agree-to-disagree.

When I write (to diverge a bit and reconnect to this point later), my highest concern is always for character. I want to feel what they are feeling and understand why they do what they do -- and if I can't, I won't write (or at "best" I'll end up with hollow shit). So when my characters are compassionate, or sad, I feel it... and when they are angry, or hateful, or raging, I feel it as well.

When I was younger (to diverge again), I was a repressed, angry son of a bitch. I was bitter, caustic, and possessed by a fire constantly stoked but rarely released. The few times I would, I hurt people -- never badly, but only because I wasn't strong enough to do so, not for lack of trying. I don't want to blame my parents, or anyone else, but as a child I had no sense of ethics. I had no morality; my only concern was for the consequences to myself. And so, when I could, I got "revenge".

I had to teach myself ethics. I had to shove morality down my own throat -- which is why I value it so highly, and why kindness and love mean so much to me, because I know how easy it is to chuck them out the window and live as a hollow, egocentric (and yet self-hating) bastard.

But my younger self is still there, buried. My-- bloodlust, really, is still there. When someone truly angers me (Danny), my imagination goes to that place, and I can see my hands around his neck, feel the skin against my fingers, the quick breathing, the pulsing arteries... having taught myself to conjure feeling from little motivation for my writing, and having that core of violence still within me, I am truly scared of what I might be capable of. Even if I couldn't do it -- most would easily toss me aside -- it'd be the same as on the football field: I don't stop until either they go down, or I do.

I reject violence for ethical reasons, of course, but the irrational, subconscious reason is this: my fear of what I could do, what I want to do, in some dark corner of my mind that most of the time I pretend doesn't exist. Ignoring a problem is rarely an acceptable solution -- but in this case, I don't know what else I can do. I stay vigilant, and avoid any action of whose endpoint I am not sure. But that's only a stopgap measure. Perhaps, like so many things, there is no permanent solution, and I am simply cursed to watch myself forever.