Thoughts
The blindness of the righteous
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary doth define righteous as follows:
1: acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a: morally right or justifiable <a righteous decision> b: arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality <righteous indignation>
Tomes have been written about the first interpretation of the word. According to some religions, there are no righteous people in the world; we are all sinners here. Some of us became sinners just by being born. Others are working very hard on it as we speak. It is an interesting topic, and I might come back to it on another occasion.
No, it is rather the second meaning of the word that I would reflect upon in the following lines. It’s the “morally right and justifiable” deed that “arises from an outraged sense of justice or morality”. An outraged sense. Righteous. Right.
And when did outrage ever led to anything even remotely positive? A lynching mob may consider itself righteous in its outrage, no doubt fuelled by a keen sense of justice, or perhaps morality. The only problem is, justice and morality are subjective, relative values. Being an abhorrent human in the name of your outrage is never a good thing, regardless of how righteous you might feel. Because, believe you me, the feeling will pass. And if you have a shred of human decency, you will shoulder your burden of guilt for whatever outrageous deeds you enacted in your righteous rage. Righteous people are bulls before the cape. They’re blind to the consequences.
In Rwanda, 15 years ago, we saw again the rise of the righteous. Neighbours killing neighbours. Friends killing friends. One million people died under the knives of those who imagined that truth, justice and indeed, divine right were on their side. Let us all spare them a thought this day.
And next time you feel that righteous anger bubbling in your throat, take a moment – and consider the consequences.
Empty room
There’s an empty room with your name on it.
The door is ajar, moving slightly…Â just a trick of the eye, perhaps. Soft pale light frames the opening, pulsating gently in an irregular pattern. The handle is still warm, but cooling fast. I think it will be ice cold by morning.
The empty room beckons me, but I dare not enter. It is your room – it says so right there, on the door. Scrawled hastily with a nail file, one word – your name – and a dire warning. Lasciate ogni speranza…
I steal a glimpse through the slight opening. A wall: whitewashed, neutral, reflecting light in tune with the broken bulb. Upon it, a spider built its nest, and now it’s waiting. Waiting in vain, for there is only I who’s left alive, and I’m not coming in. The spider is staring at me.
Half a vase crawls into view, within it a dozen dried roses. They used to be red. I can see their leaves, almost crumbling, frozen scream around the last evaporating drop. They’re brown now, the colour of old blood. The colour of nails endlessly scratching a brick wall.
I used to know this room. In my mind I can almost see it. The vision is hazy and incomplete though, like the glimmer of distant mirages glimpsed through the midday sun. I open my eyes. The spider mocks me silently. I think it’s already dead – chitinous carapace stuck in its own dusty web, moving gently with the current. Death is ironic nowadays.
There’s an empty room, sanctified in your name.
Who are you?
I cannot remember.
Borders
We live in a world of borders. Of boundaries, within and without. There’s check-ins, check-outs, passports, barbed wire, controls, guards, rivers, unseen lines in the sand. We all want to go somewhere. And we all pass through borders to get there.
We carry our borders within us. What we know, what we lived so far, the world we see and feel and touch, our friends, our families, our experiences – that is our territory. Sometimes we go out, conquer something new. "I didn’t know I could do that…" "I just found out that…" These are words, formulas, they’re spells that we invoke when we extend our borders.
But sometimes there’s no need to walk through there. We look, we see, and what we cannot see, we can imagine. All the world’s stories are means of introspection, for a good story has within it the magic to transport us within. We walk in the heroes’ shoes, we see through their eyes and feel with their hearts. We shudder at their cruelty, we cry their tears and laugh their joy. We live their lives, if only for a time. And thus we learn. "Would I have done that?" "What would I have done?" This magic helps us scry beyond our borders.
The way we are dictates the way we walk, the way we conquer. Some of us wonder far and wide, amassing lands, never stopping in wonder of what lies beyond the wall. Then there are others that erect huge towers, from which they can see far and wide. They never walk, for they don’t believe it necessary. They can see just fine from up there. These are the most extreme, of course – most of us will do both during a lifetime. Sometimes our friends do walk ahead us, and we follow. Other times not, because we see the pit they fell in, or the lions they encountered. And so we live. And learn.
And then there are the times when life throws us off balance. We’re wondering content within our borders when a tornado drops us into Oz. Everything’s new, everything’s different, and all we ever knew is now long one. In times like these one learns about oneself. To one’s glory, or perhaps to one’s dismay – for even the cruellest of the tyrants are heroes of their own story, and no one likes to see a villain in the mirror.
Indeed, most of us walk through life without ever having to ask ourselves the hard questions. Look in the eyes of the next stranger you meet – can you see his potential? Can you see yours? Did Hitler imagine the horrors he’ll cause when he was just a corporal in the Austrian army? If a tornado would tear you from your cosy little world and drag you into an Inquisition court, would you side with the cardinal? Or with the witch?
We can only imagine.
My other self
Photo
BookList
The Scar by China Mieville
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
A Working of Stars... by Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald
The Stars Asunder by Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald
Overtime: A Tor.Com Original by Charles Stross