Torture
For some inexplicable reason I found myself reading the news earlier. It was in regards to terrorism and England's deportation of radical clerics. Apparently when they want to deport someone from their country, they have to ensure that they are being shipped off to a country that will not torture or mistreat them in any way. It mentioned how some places pull toenails out!
My question to ANYone in the world is, HOW can ANYone pull another human being's toenails out? Like, ever? How can anyone lose enough of their own humanity and sensitivity so as to inflict that sort of pain on someone? I don't doubt it happens. I don't dispute that there are still facilities and governments who rely on torture even in its many other incarnations to get information from someone or to warn others or to even simply be mean. But I do not understand what caused the whole idea in the first place. Was it an accident, someone got a toenail caught in a blender somewhere and someone heard them cry and liked it, and then repeated the incident themselves on that person to hear them cry again? Is it a feeling of control, one derived from the misplaced idea that forcing someone into compliance is hardly as gratifying, rewarding, or beneficial as actually being NICE for once and earning their fellowship or trust?
Perhaps there is no really definite answer. I'd like to think that neglect and abuse as a child can cause someone to grow up trying to get attention via gross acts. I remember as a child abusing my cats and pulling wings off flies. I'm certainly not proud of it and feel horrible that I ever did it. But I was a CHILD. I grew OUT of that. What's with all the adults, who have so much more power than I did, who think they need more? Are they huge empty vessels full of dark light, like a black hole, just consuming as much as they can as fast as they can, and hurting others to remind themselves that they exist? If someone can say of you, "You're a horribly mean, torturous person," does that indicate that you're any more powerful than someone whom everyone likes? Is this the only kind of attention that these torturous individuals have known? Or are they so removed from humanity in their minds that they don't see anyone else as human either and can't believe they really suffer?
My heart goes out to anyone in the world who suffers torture, whether it be political, enslaving, domestic, societal, or just plain circumstance.
Ducky occasionally asks me, "How can people fight like that? Don't they love each other?" He speaks of his neighbours. I have no answer for him. Our own relationship seems to be the opposite of what we hear happening next door and in the world. Not all of my relationships have been so wonderful, but none of them lasted as long either. So I feel his question is quite valid. Why do those people stay in each other's company if they dislike each other enough to fight every other day? What's the point? The only thing I can come up with is that they don't know anything else. I didn't. When I was growing up I saw thievery, lies, deceit, manipulation, violence, drugs, sex, rape, shootings, threats, swearing, cussing, screaming, murder. I thought the "perfect families" I saw on tv were just hopeful views of what life MIGHT be like - on another planet.
My problem with my own potential answer, however, is that despite the stuff I grew up in, I never touched drugs, I was never a particularly violent person, I don't go around raping people (women CAN rape men by the way), and I don't steal and scream at people. I don't go jumping on little old ladies in the parking lot just because they have a purse with two bucks in it. And, when I find happiness in other people, I don't seek to take it AWAY FROM THEM!! I know so many negative people who hate happiness in others. I understand the feeling, too, but why take it away from someone? If I'm in pain, I only want empathy, not to drag everyone down into my misery. What makes someone feel differently?
Perhaps I do not want to understand. Perhaps understanding would mean that I went through more negativity than I actually did and it would have been just enough to make me the very person whose thoughts and desires I cannot even fathom. Perhaps understanding would mean that I'm not human any more and am incapable of locating any sense of sanity.
Some people have told me I need to read more news and stay updated with current events because they're important and affect me in some distant way. They say I should be happy I live in America where such things do not happen [as often]. I think that maybe I should stay away from the news because it's upsetting and I'd rather spread happiness than fear. And I think that despite all the awesome freedoms I admit to having, no country is as pristine and perfect as people here make this one out to be. We [America] had slavery. We had concentration camps. We still have crime and lots of it. If this place was so perfect, why then is all the crime still here? Why is it that so many of our people are still homeless and hungry and scared both day and night? Why is there still domestic violence? Why do we suddenly turn on our neighbours when someone screams terrorism?
Maybe we're not as free as we think. Maybe we're just living on borrowed time. Maybe instead of being scared we need to truly appreciate every moment of every day that we're not being tortured, yelled at and manipulated, because we just never know when some insane person will beat down our doors, pull our toenails out, and whisper sweet threats into our ears.
My question to ANYone in the world is, HOW can ANYone pull another human being's toenails out? Like, ever? How can anyone lose enough of their own humanity and sensitivity so as to inflict that sort of pain on someone? I don't doubt it happens. I don't dispute that there are still facilities and governments who rely on torture even in its many other incarnations to get information from someone or to warn others or to even simply be mean. But I do not understand what caused the whole idea in the first place. Was it an accident, someone got a toenail caught in a blender somewhere and someone heard them cry and liked it, and then repeated the incident themselves on that person to hear them cry again? Is it a feeling of control, one derived from the misplaced idea that forcing someone into compliance is hardly as gratifying, rewarding, or beneficial as actually being NICE for once and earning their fellowship or trust?
Perhaps there is no really definite answer. I'd like to think that neglect and abuse as a child can cause someone to grow up trying to get attention via gross acts. I remember as a child abusing my cats and pulling wings off flies. I'm certainly not proud of it and feel horrible that I ever did it. But I was a CHILD. I grew OUT of that. What's with all the adults, who have so much more power than I did, who think they need more? Are they huge empty vessels full of dark light, like a black hole, just consuming as much as they can as fast as they can, and hurting others to remind themselves that they exist? If someone can say of you, "You're a horribly mean, torturous person," does that indicate that you're any more powerful than someone whom everyone likes? Is this the only kind of attention that these torturous individuals have known? Or are they so removed from humanity in their minds that they don't see anyone else as human either and can't believe they really suffer?
My heart goes out to anyone in the world who suffers torture, whether it be political, enslaving, domestic, societal, or just plain circumstance.
Ducky occasionally asks me, "How can people fight like that? Don't they love each other?" He speaks of his neighbours. I have no answer for him. Our own relationship seems to be the opposite of what we hear happening next door and in the world. Not all of my relationships have been so wonderful, but none of them lasted as long either. So I feel his question is quite valid. Why do those people stay in each other's company if they dislike each other enough to fight every other day? What's the point? The only thing I can come up with is that they don't know anything else. I didn't. When I was growing up I saw thievery, lies, deceit, manipulation, violence, drugs, sex, rape, shootings, threats, swearing, cussing, screaming, murder. I thought the "perfect families" I saw on tv were just hopeful views of what life MIGHT be like - on another planet.
My problem with my own potential answer, however, is that despite the stuff I grew up in, I never touched drugs, I was never a particularly violent person, I don't go around raping people (women CAN rape men by the way), and I don't steal and scream at people. I don't go jumping on little old ladies in the parking lot just because they have a purse with two bucks in it. And, when I find happiness in other people, I don't seek to take it AWAY FROM THEM!! I know so many negative people who hate happiness in others. I understand the feeling, too, but why take it away from someone? If I'm in pain, I only want empathy, not to drag everyone down into my misery. What makes someone feel differently?
Perhaps I do not want to understand. Perhaps understanding would mean that I went through more negativity than I actually did and it would have been just enough to make me the very person whose thoughts and desires I cannot even fathom. Perhaps understanding would mean that I'm not human any more and am incapable of locating any sense of sanity.
Some people have told me I need to read more news and stay updated with current events because they're important and affect me in some distant way. They say I should be happy I live in America where such things do not happen [as often]. I think that maybe I should stay away from the news because it's upsetting and I'd rather spread happiness than fear. And I think that despite all the awesome freedoms I admit to having, no country is as pristine and perfect as people here make this one out to be. We [America] had slavery. We had concentration camps. We still have crime and lots of it. If this place was so perfect, why then is all the crime still here? Why is it that so many of our people are still homeless and hungry and scared both day and night? Why is there still domestic violence? Why do we suddenly turn on our neighbours when someone screams terrorism?
Maybe we're not as free as we think. Maybe we're just living on borrowed time. Maybe instead of being scared we need to truly appreciate every moment of every day that we're not being tortured, yelled at and manipulated, because we just never know when some insane person will beat down our doors, pull our toenails out, and whisper sweet threats into our ears.
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