Killing @ MindSay

This Story is GOing Nowhere

Have you ever been so happy that you decided to spread that happiness by going on a random killing spree? Well, that's exactly what Mike, our protagonist is feeling right now. It's a weird feeling, he thought, it does not come and go like a wave, but it's continuous, like it's been this way ever since I was born and I grew up with this feeling that there's something lodged inside my ribcage just around the vicinity of my heart. Mike writes this thought in his journal which he then closes. He rises up from his chair and floats into the washroom, where he gazes upon his face, all twenty years old of him, staring back from inside the magic opposite mirror land and the face attempts a smile. Almost, almost. No, the attempt was a failure. He washes his face and floats back into his room, changes clothes, goes out.

It's windy and he breathes the cold air, holds it inside his lungs for several seconds then exhales. It's almost noon and the street is bustling with activity. The usual: beggars, office workers, cars, small mounds of garbage, stray dogs and cats. He digs inside his pocket. He forgot something.

Now all packed and ready to go, he goes where exactly we do not know. For this story is not about Mike but about the man he's about to kill that afternoon and that man is currently sitting inside a fastfood restaurant called the joyousbee or happywasp or something like that, munching like a pig on his supermegadoubledeluxe burger. He's a simple man with simple needs: such as a mansion, women and expensive cars. He has just been from a rather strenous meeting and all day he's been looking forward to this meal. Wrapped around his right wrist is a rolex which reflects the light coming from the outside and fills the whole restaurant with its radiant wonderful health-giving golden glow.

He awaits the jeepney and Mike whistles a happy tune and every single time, the happiness of the tune convinces him that he's not afraid.

Ah what's the point of all this, what's the point of life, what's the point of suffering, what's the point of breathing at all, all these thoughts raced across his mind while looking at the blur of sceneries outside: the usual working people on the streets walking going to their offices and work and jobs and him, where am I going, nowhere, I'm going nowhere. Nowhere.

He's a man of purpose and importance and the last thing that he wants right now is to be late for his next important appointment, so he wipes his mouth and rises up. You could hear the trumpets and drums rolling on the background, proof of how important this fat, ugly sonofabitch really is. Thank you, come again sir, the guard who opens the door, says to him.

Mike thinks about something, what we do not know, and why the hell would we want to know. We don't even know the guy, we only know that he's going to kill that fat bastard, and that's the only reason we've come this far in this narrative anyway. Anyway, Mike actually thinks that someone is watching him and he does not like the feeling. He digs inside his pocket just to feel the security offered by his new and shiny butterfly knife aka balisong. Fellow passengers look at him with that funny look people give you when they think you're about to shoot them in the head.

Someone shouts HOLDAP, Mike looks at him. The guy is maybe sixty years old, frail-looking and wearing old man clothes, the rusty knife he's holding is wriggling and jiggling as if having an epileptic seizure. The people smile at the old man, and they all say at the same time: AW Grampa, you're so funny. And that's when the old man stabs Mike on the knee.

The end

No not really, Mike beats the crap out of the old man. The other passengers joining him.

Now, if you think this story is going nowhere, you are probably right for the author only made this all up to pass the time and he apologizes if you do not like it. Meanwhile, he has to close this journal now so he can go out, breathe the cold air and go kill some fat, rich politician in some fastfood restaurant called the happywasp or joyousbee, you know, just to spread the joy.

I slept late the next day, till almost 7:00 in the morning, and I had coffee and I read the paper before I excused myself—my mother was visiting—and went upstairs to my cushion and sat forty minutes. I did not dwell on the war when I sat, I don't know why. As I had learned first from books and then practiced for years on my own and then been instructed and practiced now I allowed my thoughts to rise and to pass away as I followed my breath in and followed my breath out.

Though the principle of nonviolence still motivated me, I no longer felt, as I once had, tormented by my impotence. Later, watching the war on television, I pondered the infinite euphemisms for killing people—national defense, regime change, collateral damage, jihad, just war, pre-emptive war, degradation of enemy forces, freedom fighting, operation liberty, justice—or killing people, killing people, killing people, killing people, killing people, killing people, killing people. The good reason for killing people was that they had killed people, were killing people, or would kill people. Sometimes it did seem, as critics said, that the Buddhist answer was to ignore it:

Just don’t think about it.
Just sit.
Just breathe.

But what could I do to stop it, really, or to respond to it, other than what I was doing? I sat, I practiced, I taught school, and yet at times life was so odd, so surreal, so bizarre, a nightmare, the horrors of this ugly war playing on TV while my mother and I shared a light lunch, chatted of family matters, switched the channel to the golf tournament, prepared to feast later at Red Lobster.

There still remained moments when I felt that the proper response to this world of killing would be to scream and to scream and to keep on screaming; or like Niobe to weep and to weep and to keep on weeping; or to pray and to pray and to keep on praying in constant prayer—but then reason returned. Screaming, crying, praying, reason asked, what good would any of that do?

“None,” I told the master, answering my own question.

“It might,” he responded. “Who knows?”

I had to laugh.

Days passed—downstairs I drank coffee and read the morning paper. There had been a grisly incident in the war. An Iraqi family of thirteen all loaded into one vehicle had at a checkpoint failed to halt on command and had been destroyed by the cannon of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Seven were killed, six injured, all or nearly all women and children. Even hours later it made me want to cry but I don’t cry. In the afternoon I heard one news reporter suggest that the driver had been compelled by Iraqi irregulars to ignore the command and to speed ahead, the Iraqi irregulars hoping for propaganda purposes to create just such an incident in which innocent civilians were killed by coalition forces.

That night I sat with the master on the porch of the zen temple before our evening meditation. We talked about the present war and traded stories of teaching college during the war in Vietnam. It was April 1, the evening was beautiful, the temperature in the 80s, for the time of year almost too warm.

“The war makes it hard to enjoy the spring,” he said.

All this was five years ago and now there are four thousand American soldiers dead, eighty thousand Iraqi and Afghan dead, two million refugees, and still the bombs and bodies burst, still the TV talkers one more time recite the list of shining ideals, and still the war and the killing go on. We live, we cry, we laugh, we die and one day we are only unfamiliar faces smiling—why why—from a funny faded photograph.

Here is a teaser from a discussion going on over at Prosblogian:

Many people have difficulty with God's acts in the Bible because God seems to be committing or commanding immoral acts (e.g., when God commands the Israelites to wipe out certain people-groups, including children). I think that many of these charges can be alleviated if some good justification can be given for the claim that it is morally permissible for God to kill people as he does in the Bible.

One step towards arguing for the claim that it is morally permissible for God to kill people is to argue that people do not have the right not to be killed by God. I may have the right that you not kill me, and vice versa, but

perhaps there are different considerations with God. The difference is that while others don't own my body, God may own my body. There are three options:

a) God owns the body inhabit and I don't,
b) I own my body and God doesn't
c) God and I jointly own my body.

This is a major excerpt from the posting and there are quite a number of responses.

I was struggling over trying to define a concept and for the life of me could not proceed very far and kept hitting solid brick walls until I received a revelation.

 

Revelation:

No Ideal, no matter how good it seems, be it Freedom, Human Love or Justice, becomes worthless and corrupt without God. God is the center point and fulcrum of every good Ideal and so without him they cease to be good or of any worth.

Without God everything falls apart and there become no point to any Ideal.

 

With this now firmly in place I could begin with my searching for answers more freely than I was before.

 

The question was Freedom.

 

What is Freedom?

My first answer was that Freedom is an Ideal and as such a state of mind.

Today’s definition of Freedom is the idea of doing whatever you want. This is Freedom without taking God or others into account.

 

Our Founding Fathers, despite whatever your have been brainwashed to think, did have God in mind when they decided to fight for their Freedom from England.

The Founders idea of Freedom consisted of having the Right to govern themselves, the Right not to be taxed without representation and Free of soldiers which Forced themselves into people’s homes and hospitality.

For more information on this time and a look at the Declaration of Independence go here: http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/charters.html

 

Now go read the Declaration if you have a problem with what I say.

I’ll still BE HERE!

 

 

Second Question:

Can Freedom become a bad thing and when?

The answer to this is, yes. Freedom can easily become corrupted by another person merely by following the modern definition of Freedom.

Freedom ceases to be good when it harms others and or oneself emotionally, physically or mentally.

 

For example of harming ones self, say you had the freedom to indulge in drugs or binge drinking. This would harm your body and your mind, making your freedom a bad thing.

 

The other aspect I then explored is that one can abuse their freedom by interfering with another person’s freedom. This is assuming you believe everyone to have freedom. I have met people who may say they believe this but really do not.

 

Some examples of infringing on another’s freedom is Rape and Killing.

If you rape another person you take away their choice to have or not have sex with you. (Please keep in mind this is only an example and NOT an accusation)

 

If you kill someone you take away their freedom to live life. In fact you take the one thing that makes it possible for them to experience freedom when you kill them, their life.

 

And to those people who love and/or are not afraid of Death/Dieing:

Please Remember MOST people do not want to die.

 

They. Won’t. Appreciate. Being. KILLED!!!!!!

So leave them alone. You take away their freedom when you kill them and in turn remove your own freedom because you will be pursued by the law.

 

More on Death will be blogged later but I have digressed.

 

On Tyrants and Freedom:

 

Tyrants come in many forms. A Tyrant is anyone who is an oppressor, bully, tormentor, persecutor or dictator.

 

They can, in ones eyes range from ones parents (for which it is their right until the age of eighteen or you move out of their house) or Saddam Hussein a political dictator. (If I get so much as one complaint that Bush is a Dictator I will come down on you like a two ton anvil in a cartoon because you obviously just parrot what you hear or you don’t know how very limited Presidential power really is. Bush is not a Dictator anymore than Bill Clinton or George Washington was.)

 

Do dictators deserve to be killed? Do we have a right to kill any and all tyrants?

Well the answer is no. Part of the reason behind this answer has to do with Morals (something which will also be blogged upon at a later date which this country sorely lacks). This ties in with the above paragraphs.

 

But with this question one must also take into consideration, God. Granted this will make no sense to you nor will you agree unless you believe in a supreme being.

 

But this leads to a more ultimate question; When does one person’s ‘freedom’ stop and another begins?

 

It stops before you harm another being or yourself.

If you harm another person, authority (which is more ultimate than freedom *modern definition*), has the freedom to stop you from doing so.

This is all I have to say for now on this subject. If you believe somthing should be added go a head and tell me via comment.

So I am now addicted to BattleField 2. I have had this game for a while now but when I was at home for some reason I could never get it work correctly. Well I could get most of it to work but not playing online which is the main point of the game. I can for some reason get it to work all good over here and I LOVE IT!! I mean I knew I was going to but now whenever I get some free time I hop on there and start the shooting. Some times yes I just keep getting my ass kicked but other times I do pretty well actually. The other day I was on one and the the team we were facing had some VERY good flyers so yeah I could barely get to the island to finght before I was shot dead from the copper and jets. Though I look at that and say o well just gives me soemthing to work for. It is funny there are some LT's here that have started to play and it seems they never like to play online. I dont get why though. the one was saying it becasue as soon as he logged on he would just get sniped out and killed again and again. That is acutally the reason I like to play on line too. If you play against the BOTs it is just to easy. I mean yes when you have it on the hardest level for them they are pretty good but it is nothing like real people. Bots can't think like a human and react like one. They can come close but not quite. Anyways that be about all I have to say about that. Later

~Bob

 

PS: I watched Forest Gump last night, it made me think of Dawn the whole time. I had some tears fall a coupel of times. I really miss her