67
" The Oscar-nominated documentary The Act of Killing tells the story of the gangster leaders who carried out anti-communist purges in Indonesia in 1965 to usher in the regime of Suharto.
The film’s hook, which makes it compelling and accessible, is that the filmmakers get Anwar —one of the death-squad leaders, who murdered around a thousand communists using a wire rope—and his acolytes to reenact the killings and events around them on film in a variety of genres of their choosing.
In the film’s most memorable sequence, Anwar—who is old now and actually really likable, a bit like Nelson Mandela, all soft and wrinkly with nice, fuzzy gray hair—for the purposes of a scene plays the role of a victim in one of the murders that he in real life carried out.
A little way into it, he gets a bit tearful and distressed and, when discussing it with the filmmaker on camera in the next scene, reveals that he found the scene upsetting. The offcamera director asks the poignant question, “What do you think your victims must’ve felt like?” and Anwar initially almost fails to see the connection. Eventually, when the bloody obvious correlation hits him, he thinks it unlikely that his victims were as upset as he was, because he was “really” upset. The director, pressing the film’s point home, says, “Yeah but it must’ve been worse for them, because we were just pretending; for them it was real.”
Evidently at this point the reality of the cruelty he has inflicted hits Anwar, because when they return to the concrete garden where the executions had taken place years before, he, on camera, begins to violently gag.
This makes incredible viewing, as this literally visceral ejection of his self and sickness at his previous actions is a vivid catharsis. He gagged at what he’d done.
After watching the film, I thought—as did probably everyone who saw it—how can people carry out violent murders by the thousand without it ever occurring to them that it is causing suffering? Surely someone with piano wire round their neck, being asphyxiated, must give off some recognizable signs? Like going “ouch” or “stop” or having blood come out of their throats while twitching and spluttering into perpetual slumber?
What it must be is that in order to carry out that kind of brutal murder, you have to disengage with the empathetic aspect of your nature and cultivate an idea of the victim as different, inferior, and subhuman. The only way to understand how such inhumane behavior could be unthinkingly conducted is to look for comparable examples from our own lives. Our attitude to homelessness is apposite here.
It isn’t difficult to envisage a species like us, only slightly more evolved, being universally appalled by our acceptance of homelessness.
“What? You had sufficient housing, it cost less money to house them, and you just ignored the problem?”
They’d be as astonished by our indifference as we are by the disconnected cruelty of Anwar. "
― Russell Brand
70
" Attitude Is Everything
We live in a culture that is blind to betrayal and intolerant of emotional pain. In New Age crowds here on the West Coast, where your attitude is considered the sole determinant of the impact an event has on you, it gets even worse.In these New Thought circles, no matter what happens to you, it is assumed that you have created your own reality. Not only have you chosen the event, no matter how horrible, for your personal growth. You also chose how you interpret what happened—as if there are no interpersonal facts, only interpretations.
The upshot of this perspective is that your suffering would vanish if only you adopted a more evolved perspective and stopped feeling aggrieved. I was often kindly reminded (and believed it myself), “there are no victims.” How can you be a victim when you are responsible for your circumstances?
When you most need validation and support to get through the worst pain of your life, to be confronted with the well-meaning, but quasi-religious fervor of these insidious half-truths can be deeply demoralizing. This kind of advice feeds guilt and shame, inhibits grieving, encourages grandiosity and can drive you to be alone to shield your vulnerability. "
― Sandra Lee Dennis
75
" The source of love, as I learned later, is a curiosity which, combined with the inclination which nature is obliged to give us in order to preserve itself. […] Hence women make no mistake in taking such pains over their person and their clothing, for it is only by these that they can arouse a curiosity to read them in those whom nature at their birth declared worthy of something better than blindness. […] As time goes on a man who has loved many women, all of them beautiful, reaches the point of feeling curious about ugly women if they are new to him. He sees a painted woman. The paint is obvious to him, but it does not put him off. His passion, which has become a vice, is ready with the fraudulent title page. ‘It is quite possible,’ he tells himself, ‘that the book is not as bad as all that; indeed, it may have no need of this absurd artifice.’ He decides to scan it, he tries to turn over the pages—but no! the living book objects; it insists on being read properly, and the ‘egnomaniac’ becomes a victim of coquetry, the monstrous persecutor of all men who ply the trade of love.
You, Sir, who are a man of intelligence and have read these least twenty lines, which Apollo drew from my pen, permit me to tell you that if they fail to disillusion you, you are lost—that is, you will be the victim of the fair sex to the last moment of your life. If that prospect pleases you, I congratulate you "
― Giacomo Casanova , History of My Life, Vols. I & II
76
" ....Oh, what???.... Can you repeat... okay... I will say I'm against every your though (What can yo do about that?) (Oh, oh you poor little kid, oh, oh you poor little man you can't do anything here is the story)...Once upon a time there was two women and one man,... they weren't let to go outside... they both were married to the same man... it was said to them " If They go outside they won't come back" , but the truth was who goes outside he will be slaughtered, every finger one by one will be cutted, then little pushing inside a knife in the body, a lot of blood goes outside in the same time the other woman also get punished if the one get's. She is punished to drink the other woman blood, when this process is going again and again the man removes the clothes and he start jerk off on their faces..., (Yeah I know you will try to kill him, but you can't), you are bound with metal and rope handcuffs your legs and your arms. On your head you have a mask, if you move it detectes and it explodes when it explodes your face goes ugly from ugly you goes disable you are dead because this mask kills the brain... The other woman is next to a trap which detectes if she goes out of one zone, it goes like this if there is so much pressure it won't happen this, but if there isn't it goes very bad... The man is above few meters and he jerkoff on their faces and he does what he wants... and so on and so on... YOu can't change it, once you are the killer (Very bad for you, ...man), once you are the victim wow that's very bad I few awful if I was a victim somebody will jerk off on my face and I'm not a gay....! If this happen remind me to kill my self, I can't live with the thought that I'm a gay... "
77
" My Dear Son,
I am so very proud of you. Now, as you embark on a new journey, I'd like to share this one piece of advice. Always, always remember that - adversity is not a detour. It is part of the path.
You will encounter obstacles. You will make mistakes. Be grateful for both. Your obstacles and mistakes will be your greatest teachers. And the only way to not make mistakes in this life is to do nothing, which is the biggest mistake of all.
Your challenges, if you let them, will become your greatest allies. Mountains can crush or raise you, depending on which side of the mountain you choose to stand on. All history bears out that the great, those who have changed the world, have all suffered great challenges. And, more times than not it's precisely those challenges that, in God's time, lead to triumph.
Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone.
Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact be your only path to success. "
― , A Winter Dream
