adelaidemedblog

Almost immediately after I wrote what I wrote before under the same title (without the part 2 bit) I went and read a book on various things to do with life. Normally I wouldn’t do this too much. My experience with such books has been limited to a couple of smallish ones, two of them being: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and And Never Stop Dancing. Usually whenever I see one of these kinds of books, the first thing I think is: “My goodness, what a craphole name for a book.” There is no excuse for naming your book what you would otherwise say to your ballet students just before you go off to the toilet. Typical American extravagance….

“We are all capable of anything”

This is the title of the twenty fifth chapter in the second book. It is a short chapter in the book that relates to the reader a very specific event in the author’s life. Yours truly will now conveniently sum up the chapter in two sentences: He loved his father with all his might. He pulled the sight of his rifle up to eye-level and slowly swung it around to aim directly at his father’s back, finger on the trigger.

We are all capable of anything. Post traumatic tress is simply a sudden, uncontrollable manifestation of the not-so-everyday events that happen in all of our lives. If that’s true, then following is my understanding of the situation: I live in a place that tells me the answers to questions, in a society that tells me why this or that happens, what, where, and who. On the news, I heard that an Australian university student fell out of a tall building and died, over in Vietnam. His friends, who were travelling with him at the time, say it was a tragic accident. He wasn’t suicidal, he didn’t want to die. I have always wondered what it would mean if someone killed themselves out of curiosity.

We are all capable of anything. I am driving, keeping my eyes on the road. Fear leads to instability, and I am suddenly imagining myself having a head-on collision with the twenty-tonne truck heading in the opposite direction - it only takes a slight turn of the wheel to the right. Five people involved in a high-speed highway collision between a wagon and a semi-trailer; it is not known if any alcohol was involved. I mean, if I was standing next to the safety railing of the stairwell and moved to the left and put my leg up and over, I’d be dead. Two simple actions, and then Pain. Pain is a huge deterrent. Religion is an even greater one. There have been so many opportunities, and I have never taken one of them. Why would I? My life is perfect, never more than now, never more than whenever I say it.

We are all capable of anything - a heinous act must be punished, right? Even though it was caused not by malice, nor by irresponsibility. It was not distraction that drove the passengers to their graves. We all need rules to follow in our lives. If we have no rules, there are no boundaries to our actions, and therefore there are no regulations on their effects. This is the Mylanta for your indigestion, the Neurofen for your back pain, and the Viagra for your impotence. The judge will tell me that I was guilty of grievous negligence, or the news for that matter. I would know what I was really guilty of - trying to find myself through the mess of distractions that plagued me throughout my life, and coming through with less than first place.

Those criminal rules only affect people whose actions affected others. Punishments themselves are based primarily on effects on others. It fascinates me to think that I’m living a controlled life, on in which only a certain amount of variation is allowed, in protection of my bodily and mental health.

The ones who win jostle and fight to the very end. Maybe the real winners come second, or last.  Does anyone understand what I’m talking about here?  Reading over this again, it really doesn’t make much sense.  Then again, personal development is like that.  Oh, wait, we’ve finished MPPD haven’t we?