In response to “Be polite to everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill everyone in the room”
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I prefer to look at human interaction like a planet. Physical violence is there, as a possibility. It’s just over the horizon from where we are now. You can’t see it from here.Truth be told I’d prefer not to go there. However, if you insist on traveling that direction, please recognize there’s a big difference between preferring not to go there and being afraid to.
That’s why the ‘have a plan to kill everyone in the room’ always made my teeth itch. It’s unnecessary as violence isn’t even on the horizon. It’s not rushing towards you either, you’re the one moving towards it with that dipfuck statement. Politeness in everyday interactions makes life easier for everyone. Politeness in a situation where it’s a thin red cunt hair from turning into a race over who shoots who in the face first is a lifesaver.
Now do I believe that it’s wise to have the ability to plan, willingness and means to put those plans into action? Yes. But given my past lifestyle that was a necessary set of skills. Yet I will be the first to say look at other options first.
Why? Here’s a hint. I’ve been in the place where I didn’t see people, I just saw targets. It is fucked up. That’s why I had to get out of there ASAP. By ‘othering’ all of humanity, I was losing my humanity. I didn’t need to have a plan to kill everyone in the room, I had the means — and what terrified me — was the willingness to do it. That’s too damned close to making a bad use of force decision.
I had to get out of LA because there were too many people who were pushing things towards violence to get what they wanted. Thing was it was a bluff with them, but to make it look real, they had to act as though they were about to attack. Here’s a problem, for me a bad day at work meant someone died – a suck ass day meant it was me. So here are people coming at me as if they were hardcore with no idea the level of hell I was going to drop on their heads. Because they didn’t know the kinds of dangers I faced on the job, they never realized what a bad idea it was to try to intimidate me with the threat of violence. God help them if they convinced me they were serious. Like I said, not a good place to be.
There’s a time and a place for violence without hesitation, every day society isn’t one of them. So be polite and courteous to all you deal with, but have as many different options as possible on the table if that doesn’t work out — including standing up, saying ‘excuse me’ and walking away.