I'm sure most of you are aware of the killing spree that occurred in the UK last Wednesday. A taxi driver, Derrick Bird, drove around the English countryside killing family, colleagues and random strangers in cold blood. By the time he was done, 13 people (including himself) were dead and scores more were injured.
The local authorities continue their investigation into why this carnage unfolded. In its most naked sense, I think most people already know one of the key reasons: power. Granting oneself the power to decide life and death is, unfortunately, a sentiment that too many can identify with.
(I often marvel at supposed sportsmen who talk with rhapsody about the experience of the hunt. While they may need the meat to feed the little ones at home, one can't mistake the thrill they receive from killing other beings. In one way, what they are describing is the power to decide life and death.)
Since far too many individuals feel powerless their entire lives -- at the mercy of fate, God, luck or the institutions of civilized society -- the very idea of grasping the reins of power can be intoxicating. It's a way of saying, "I'm tired of playing the victim. Now, I will be the aggressor!"
While most of us possess the humanity not to grab a gun to go shoot up our neighborhood or town, if we are at least honest with ourselves, we can understand the mentality of those who do. Who has not been angry enough at some point in their life in which -- if the circumstances had been just so -- we each might have done something we would horribly regret? Who among us has not felt the humiliation of victimization from variables beyond our control and has not wanted some manner of revenge?
As I've written in this space before, what I think genuinely bothers most people about heinous mass murders is NOT that we can't understand what would drive a person to commit such atrocities, it's that deep down each of us can tap into those very emotions. In the dark recesses of our imagination, we may have played out scenarios that are just as bad, if not worse.
For all the love and beauty in the world, there is a dark side too. The light and dark are facets of who each of us are. While the hope in this life is that the light wins out, the dark continues to lurk on the edges of sanity. Pushed to the edge of this abyss, who is to say what any of us might do!
I think Lao Tzu well understood this dynamic well. He intimately understood the perpetual yin and yang of life. For me, this is why he urges each of us to cling to the center, the middle path. By residing in the middle, we stay away from the edges and the dark well that resides in us all.
The local authorities continue their investigation into why this carnage unfolded. In its most naked sense, I think most people already know one of the key reasons: power. Granting oneself the power to decide life and death is, unfortunately, a sentiment that too many can identify with.
(I often marvel at supposed sportsmen who talk with rhapsody about the experience of the hunt. While they may need the meat to feed the little ones at home, one can't mistake the thrill they receive from killing other beings. In one way, what they are describing is the power to decide life and death.)
Since far too many individuals feel powerless their entire lives -- at the mercy of fate, God, luck or the institutions of civilized society -- the very idea of grasping the reins of power can be intoxicating. It's a way of saying, "I'm tired of playing the victim. Now, I will be the aggressor!"
While most of us possess the humanity not to grab a gun to go shoot up our neighborhood or town, if we are at least honest with ourselves, we can understand the mentality of those who do. Who has not been angry enough at some point in their life in which -- if the circumstances had been just so -- we each might have done something we would horribly regret? Who among us has not felt the humiliation of victimization from variables beyond our control and has not wanted some manner of revenge?
As I've written in this space before, what I think genuinely bothers most people about heinous mass murders is NOT that we can't understand what would drive a person to commit such atrocities, it's that deep down each of us can tap into those very emotions. In the dark recesses of our imagination, we may have played out scenarios that are just as bad, if not worse.
For all the love and beauty in the world, there is a dark side too. The light and dark are facets of who each of us are. While the hope in this life is that the light wins out, the dark continues to lurk on the edges of sanity. Pushed to the edge of this abyss, who is to say what any of us might do!
I think Lao Tzu well understood this dynamic well. He intimately understood the perpetual yin and yang of life. For me, this is why he urges each of us to cling to the center, the middle path. By residing in the middle, we stay away from the edges and the dark well that resides in us all.
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