I admire that short sentence although I do not admire Luther who was an anti-Semite. Some of his essays about Jews are vitriolic. Unwilling to convert to Protestantism, Luther tagged them as “this insufferable devilish burden.” Read his “The Jews and Their Lies” (1543) and his “suggestions” of how to deal with the Jews. This blog is not about Luther but more about “Here I stand.” As I age I fully realize that the social and psychological cues of my early years are a razed environment; that what ethical values I have are not extant or in very serious decline. However, I hold fast with the self-known, willing to flex here and there, but who I am has been chiseled out decades ago and I live out this template. Is it good or bad, all those value-laden concepts? What I do know is that it is what is. I need to give some samples here to concretize what I am feeling and what I mean. I believe in a reasonable amount of shame, no, not the shame Gregor Samsa feels in “Metamorphoses.” That is inordinate and beyond the pale. I believe in a reasonable amount of regret for a mistake made, a moment or twinge in which we feel less respect for ourselves because we have disgraced or dishonored another human being. The Clintons know no shame, Cheyney knows no shame, Fox News knows no shame, Karl Rove knows no shame. We are a culture that is unreflective and corrupt, well, all societies are essentially corrupt. And if one has values that are repelled by shamelessness, one has to stand firm in all the molasses: thus, here I stand.
It has gotten so progressively worse that I derive secondary gain being ornery about my own sense of values that does not abide current cultural norms. I observe and reflect upon the dreck that consumes this culture with a pessimsitic point of view about it all. And what I have resolved to do throughout the years is to get about my own creative business while acquaintances, former friends and neighbors behave abysmally toward me, riven with their own self-hatreds, warped personal projections and distortions. I still have disintegrated atoms of naivete within me that bring about a stunned response when individuals act or behave so poorly with me. As a wise mentor told me, don’t expect too much from people and you won’t be too disappointed by them. How far can I go down that road without questioning this philosophy? Bambi I am not.You know the feeling; someone does something unthinkable to you and you cannot imagine ever doing that to them. It is beyond the pale and one is in disarray. One is wounded.
Recently in litigation I was a witness for myself. I was asked quite directly by the plaintiff if I had made insurance money from my wife’s death in 1999. The question was in the shape of an attack, framed more as a statement without a question mark behind it. It was followed by a similar and much more cruel question in that I was asked if I have profited from insurance money from my daughter’s death by her own hand in 1998. Two questions that reflected upon the inner repository of a shameless plainiff who knew no limits, few human margins of behavior, whose sole attempt was to inflict pain. And what motivates this person besides significant psychopathy was a vicious attempt to cause pain at whatever cost, no matter the ruins that might be made — or the consequences. Oh, if you think there is justice to all this let me disabuse you of that. For plaintiff seethes with this all day and all night and there are individuals about who feel the plaintiff is a kind and spiritual person, just like Luther. I will not bend to all this and I have not done so. I was made by a different value system and the plaintiff does not understand that, thus the rapid quick daggers into my side, hoping that I will fall. The plaintiff tilts at windmills with me. I am made of sterner stuff and this is what puzzles, annoys, very much vexes this entitiy that thinks it is human. The delusions we own about ourselves are mind-numbing.
I am inner-directed; plaintiff is outer-directed. Although plaintiff’s personalty is a by-product of a long-standing psychopathy, I know as a retired therapist that many of the mentally ill turn inward on themselves and fall into guilt and depression. They have the painful decency to suffer without inflicting pain on others. To repeat a theme from above, this plaintiff does not have the shame necessary to reflect upon the damage wreaked by vengeance and personal venom. It is a psychopathy that attacks others. I can report to you that I won the case. And after I testified I turned to the judge and said, “Here I stand.” It is in the transcript of the trial. It is on the record, forever more, to gather dust and mold in the hall of records, unseen, unread. And that is perfectly fine with me. It was not a Kodak moment, to use that cliche. But I understood full well what I meant and knowing that was satisfying to me alone as I stood stoically alone.
One last anecdote. The plaintiff assailed me and my book. Gunther, a vicious Nazi, guard does many horrific things in The i Tetralogy. In ignorance, with spite, with a lack of intellection, plaintiff accused me of being Gunther in essence. In a conflation of literature and real life the author was now his character and I was being castigated, berated and damned for being such a foul character. If you have your wits about you, you must be reaching some conclusions about plaintiff. It is one of those stellar moments when the simple and obvious has to be explained to the dumb, dismal and deviant in ways that are simple and obvious. Plaintiff’s “logic” had it that Camus in The Stranger, Mark Twain in Huck Finn, Melville in Moby Dick were not apart from their inventions. In short, I was a Nazi. I felt that this was Orwellian — and it was. In any case, citing the examples above, I made the case for differentiating the author from his creation.
Additonally plaintiff was going to use some sappy psychotherapist to testify without ever having interviewed me as to how I must be the Nazi in the book! Said sappy therapist must have reflected, if that is the word, and withdrew — caved in. It was to be a long-distance analysis of me by someone ill-equipped to do so, professionally aberrant. Amazing, what we can dig up to self-serve our own self-destructive tendencies.
If all this smacks of paranoia, you are on the yellow brick road. The case is now won; the consequences long-lasting for both sides.
I give you humanity.
Leave a Reply