My friend, Marina, recommended this video to me. It's awesome.

One of my very favorite anime series is Cowboy Bebop. It's easily in my top 2 or 3.

But the funny thing about this series is that I was really luke warm about it at first. It didn't really catch my interest until I saw this scene.  This, I think, is one of the most beautiful scenes in anime. And it perfectly captures the feeling of the mind being assaulted by haunting memories of the past. The music, by Yoko Kanno is absolutely beautiful.

The rest of the series is very good too. It doesn't quite live up to the promise of this single scene, but it's still easily one of the best series out there. The ending is also similarly poetically beautiful, with extraordinary music, however, some I know come to despise the ending or find it unsatisfying. Keep that in mind should you choose to watch it. Personally, I love every aspect of this series. I highly highly recommend it.

The silence had been bothering me. The disappearance even more. And the
future worried me. The past haunted me. It was like that some days. It
was like that yesterday.



But then, this morning I slept a perfect sleep. I was content.
Comfortable. Satisfied. I didn't want to wake up. I was at peace. 



Flashback...



When I was young I remember every day began the same.  My Mom would
yell for me to wake up. Only, most days, I was already awake. Just
lying in bed staring at the ceiling waiting for the call.



But it'd still be hard for me to get up. I'd force myself to roll out
of bed creep downstairs like a zombie grab some food a pop tart or
cereal and something to drink. Still I was half asleep. I'd then lie
down on the couch. It would be cold. So I'd curl myself into a little
ball, waiting for the rest of the busy house to awaken and finish their
business so that I could go about mine. It was always busy. And I never
wanted to get in anyone's way. So I lay their waiting. Visible so that
nobody thinks I'm still in bed or fears I might miss my bus and yet
effectively invisible too. Unobtrusive.



Those naps. Fifteen, thirty minutes, no longer. They were...  perfect.



I don't know how else to describe it. The night was not perfect. I
would be restless all night, never able to really sleep completely.
Thoughts of the coming day would scare me. Memories of the days gone by
would plague me. All night falling in and out of sleep, in and out of
unremembered dreams. 



And the day that followed would not be perfect either. I knew that
every morning.  School was not going to be good. Elementary school.
Middle School. High School. College. School was never good.  There would be some people though, just a few, who made it... tolerable.

I didn't do my homework. I never did. I had no plans. Or hopes. There'd
be things to do. But they'd be stupid things. I didn't want to do them.
But I would. I'd do my homework in a rush during homeroom or on the
bus. I didn't copy. My answers were going to always be right anyway.



During class, I'd spend most days with my head lying in my arms,
daydreaming. Weird thoughts. I'd imagine people's futures. I'd create
stories out of my classmates lives in my own mind. And I'd imagine
disasters striking, nuclear war, earthquakes, alien attacks, vortexes
that suck us into another dimension. I'd wonder about things to, the
why's and the hows were always interesting to me. And of course the
what ifs. Like what if I'm only dreaming or what if someone is only
dreaming me?



It wasn't that the subjects being taught weren't interesting. I was
intensely curious. I loved learning. Still do. It was just that I cared
for my own thoughts more. Class
was slow. And the teachers never thought about things the way that I
did. So I'd have to teach myself anyway. So why was I in class? I
couldn't think of one damned good reason.



And I knew how it would go, roughly once a day I could expect a teacher
to call on me just to make sure I was awake. And I'd know the answer,
nine times out of ten, and stutter it out nervously for being put on
the spot and feel miserable.  Is this the teacher's way of trying to
boost my self-esteem? Bad plan. They should read Ender's Game.



The one time I didn't know I'd just say I don't know and lie my head
right back down. The teacher would say something after that... but I'd
have already stopped listening. I'll get my A on the damn test, I'd
think, so leave me alone already.



Roughly once a month or so a teacher and on rare occasion another
(possibly bribed or coerced) student would get it in their head to try
and reach out to me. To engage me camaraderie or something. Trying to be
my friend, I guess, or understand me better. I'd watched them though.
I'd seen them engage the same strategy with others. I'd seen it engaged
with various degrees of success or failure. But I'd seen how short
lived it was. Friendships based on pity don't ever last. So I didn't
want any of that.



It was always the same. Predictable. Every day. Every week. Ever month. Every year. It was the same.



But those mornings were... something else. Something about that place.
Curled up on the couch. Cold. So cold.  I'd hear the sound of the
shower running upstairs. The bustle of people moving about the house
getting ready for work and school. And my mind would clear. All fears
and doubts would slide away. I'd focus on the warmth of the couch
capturing my body heat and radiating it back out to me. Just stay warm.
I'd think. Stay warm. I'd focus on nothing. It'd be sort of a trance.
Meditation.  Peace. Warmth. Security.  It felt right.



And then some days, he'd come share those moments with me. We'd had
this black cat.  Stubborn as stones. Prideful as sin. Mean as could be.
And he'd saunter on up to me look up at me, his eerie yellowing-green
eyes demanding my attention. I'd pick him up and he'd curl into a ball
on my stomach napping along with me, sharing his body warmth with
mine.  Letting me rub and pet him. I was the only one he'd do that with
most of the time. I like to think that his thoughts were like mine.
Focused on nothing but the moment. The here and the now. Just stay warm. Everything else will still be there in the future. For now, right now, be still, be at peace, just stay warm.



It was perfect.



The rest of the day I could deal with because of those ten, fifteen
minutes in the morning. Just that time of peace was enough to make
everything else, not so bad at all really. I wonder who I'd be today if
I hadn't had those moments of peace? That time to gather myself. To
stay in control. To accept myself.  What if I hadn't had it? Would I
have sought an outlet elsewhere? In crime or drugs or something else?
Would I have lost myself, forgotten what mattered to me and given up on
life? I've seen so many people who have. What makes me different from
them I wonder. Could it be on such little things that one's destiny
rides? Maybe a single moment of peace could save a lifetime?



But the moment always ended too. And the day would have to go on. I'd
be so reluctant to get up. And the cat would look at me with such a
scornful and disgusted look as I stirred. He was all like "How dare you
get up? Don't you know you're my bed?" But I'd have to give my
sincerest apologies to my feline friend knowing full well he'd not
accept them and probably would get his vengeance in the form of a
scratch or a bite at some time when I least expected it. That was his
way, his life, just as it was mine to arrogantly coast through school.



Years passed. Graduation. More School. Graduation. More School. Work.
The cat made his way to his afterlife where I'm sure he's demanding his
rightful place on the God of cat's lap and probably getting his way.  
And I stopped napping. I forgot about taking moments to clear my mind.
And I forgot that there could be a kind of sleep that surpassed
ordinary resting. Pressures of the present haunt me and every
increasingly stressful day fades into the next. The same. The same. The
same...



But then my air conditioner was fixed yesterday. Supposedly. Only I
can't control the temperature. So it's either freezing or burning up.
Yesterday I had it running. And I went to bed after 2 AM having not
eaten since noon the previous day and not feeling the least bit
hungry.  I curled up in a ball, under several blankets, on my mattress
on the floor that substitutes for a bed. And it was cold. So cold.  And
I listened to the rain falling outside and the thunder and lightning
blasted. I curled myself into a ball under the covers and the
comforter. I focused on nothing. My mind cleared. My worry left me. And
I slept. I dozed. Dreamless. Mindless. All the anger I didn't realize I
had been feeling left me. It'll be back before long I know, but for now
it just drained away. I didn't want to wake up. I was at peace. Resting. It was... perfect.



Oops. Ended up late for work.



It was worth it.

Adults teach children all kinds of stupid stuff. They follow the
traditions of their parents and their parents before them and so some
of the things they end up telling their children are utterly absurd and
it only take a moment of introspection to see that it is so. I could go
on for hours just writing a list of the idiocies children are forced to
absorb while growing up that have nothing to do with the reality of
life that they will end up facing.



But I believe by far the stupidest thing adults tell children is this:

Truly have you ever heard of anything more absurd?

The
child usually believes it at first when they encounter childish teasing
from their classmates they are easily able to laugh it off and go about
their lives.  It's just words, they think.

But
that belief only lasts until the very moment when they are truly
injured by the words of another. When they feel the real pain that
language can cause us. The suffering that can be wrought.

Sometimes
it happens unexpected and unintentionally. Someone that means the world
to you will manage to say something in passing that is exactly what you
least want to hear. Something that reveals something about that
person's real opinion of you, or something that tells you something
about yourself that you don't want to face. You try to ignore it, to
pass it off like nothing had happened. You don't want to offend the
person. You know it was just a slip of the tongue... but that just
doesn't change the pain it causes.

Other
times its a stranger who in passing manages to say something that
slices into you out of sheer ignorance. Again the person isn't trying
to do you harm, explicitly, but he or she just doesn't realize that
saying that thing that he or she said is offensive to you; makes you
feel like you are without worth or value, or stereotypes you as one of
a crowd you don't want to be associated with.

Still
other times though, it is intentional. Friend, foe, or stranger will
come at you explicitly and intentionally with the desire to hurt you
using words. For some reason the person is angry at you or doesn't like
you or is just a dickhead. Whatever their reasons, they aren't holding
back. They are looking for the very words most likely to rend you low,
to make you feel less than nothing. They are attacking you as surely as
if they had come at you with a machete. Their goal is to make you hurt.

When
one of these three events occur, at first you try desperately to cling
to the statement those adults told you so long long ago.  It's just
words.  I haven't been physically injured. Nothing about me has
changed. It's just verbal. Words. They don't matter. They can't hurt
me. It's only words... 

But then you
wonder, if that's the case, why do I feel like I want to crawl
underneath my bed and never come up again? Why do I feel like running
away from everyone and going off by myself and screaming again and
again until I lose my voice and collapse in exhaustion? If words can't
hurt me, what is this ache I feel reverberating from my chest?  What is
this agonizing burning pounding feeling echoing behind my eyes and
ears? My bones and sinews may well be intact and my skin may be without
blemish, but dear god this hurts. Why does it hurt so much?

Yeah. It's only words...  Sticks and stones. Thanks folks. Lesson learned.

I
think we should teach our children something else. Something that will
serve them much better in their future than sticks and stones ever did.
Don't teach children to ignore words. Don't make them think it is their
OWN failing when they are hurt by the words of others. That's cruel and
wrong. If someone hurts you with words, it is not your fault.

Rather we should teach our children to react to verbal attacks in the same way we react to physical attacks.

We fight back.

Trust
me, I am totally a pacifist and the least war like person around.  Were
it up to me, there would a blanket ban on most forms of weaponry and
we'd be working on disbanding the military as we speak. I am not a
person who believes in answering every act of aggression with
proportional aggression  or with preemptive self defense.

But... I do believe in real self defense.  The good old fashioned type.

If
some one comes at me with the intent to do me harm or harm to someone I
care about, and there is no other recourse, I will fight back with
tooth and nail. I would not stop until that person is prevented from
doing me that harm to me. Whatever is necessary to do that. I would try
to, if possible prevent myself from doing permanent harm to the aggressor
and I would take no joy in hurting him or her. But nor would I turn
aside. I certainly would not accept it and walk away and hope they don't
do it again to me or someone else.  I would not hope that they grow up
and see the errors in their ways and feel good about myself for not
having "stooped" to their level.

That's absurd. 

If
someone tries to hurt me, I'm gonna try to hurt them right back.
Honestly I'm not that physically adept so chances are I'll get the crap
beat out of me. But I'll try my hardest. And if they come at me again,
I'll try harder and hurt them back harder. Until they stop doing it. Until they determine that it is not worth the risk.
Their growing up and enlightened embracing of wisdom and reason can
come later. Right now my own safety and that of the people I care about
is what matters. That's the only thing that should be on your mind.
That's the primary principal to live by when someone attacks you here
and now.  Everything else can come later.

Now tell me... why should it be different with a verbal attack? 

It
hurts just as much you know? It hurts more. If someone comes around and
starts using their gift of language to attack your mental well being or
that of the people you care about, why should you just ignore it?
Why should walk away? Why does everyone say don't engage? Don't feed
the trolls? Walk away. Ignore it.  That's the wisdom we hear again and
again. And all the while the trolls spread through the community like a
virus, doing their harm, getting their fame, spewing their vile bile,
making everyone's lives miserable again and again.

I don't accept this strategy. It's stick and stones. It's flawed.  It's putting all the responsibility on the victim and none on the perpetrator.

And I can tell you, honestly, if it happens to me, I'm not going to just walk away.

I've
been really lucky. Online I haven't had many people try to harm me with
their words.  Only nice residents have engaged me for the most part. To
be true, I've been ruder than most of the people who have ever bothered
to comment on my blog. I'm not easily upset too. So most things I do
laugh off. It takes a lot to really rile me up. I have to really
believe that you are out to hurt me. That your sole intent is to do me
harm.

And if someone were to come here
starting a fight like that, just because they can, just because it
amuses them or because they feel have some grudge against me or someone
I know, I won't let it stand. I'm not just gonna block them and ignore
them. I'm gonna fight back. I will wield my words as a weapon just as
they do. And we'll spar and spar for as long as the person dares to
show his cowardly face around here. The way I figure it, at the very
least while he's dancing with me that's less time he has to be
bothering anybody else. I'll do exactly what I perceive as enough to
halt their aggression and if it doesn't work, then I'm going to do even
more. I'll fight back even harder. My intent will match theirs. It will be to hurt them. Hurt them enough to make them stop.

But
there are a handful of blogs on here that mean even more to  me than my
own. If someone were to come  at them  in the same way... then I'm
gonna let loose all hell to defend them. I would probably end up doing
and saying things that end up getting me banned from this community I
love. And I would do it gladly and without remorse.  My hope would be
to draw him into a flame war so vile that it gets us both banned. And I
would happily be the sacrifice to rid the community of that devil.

The
perpetrator has to be stopped.  That's all there is to it. We have only
the means at our disposal to do it. Attacking back with words is one
technique. Harnessing the power and support of the community is another
way. And appealing to the powers that be at Xanga
is yet another still.  Banning and deleting comments is just one other
tactic at our disposal. It should only be applied if it's going to work.

And it can work sometimes. But other times it just spreads the disease. The troll just wanders over to someone else's
blog to raise hell. Is that a success? If they just hurt more people
who matter to you instead of you? Your goal should not be just to get
the person out of your hair, but to prevent the person from doing
further harm to you or the people who matter to you. Through whatever
means necessary.

I don't believe in
sticks and stones or turn the other cheek. I'm a pacifist. And I hate
to fight. Believe me, I do. But in my mind there is no difference
between a wound caused by words and one resulting from a weapon or a
fist. And if you try to hurt me in either way, I will defend myself.
That's just the way I am.

A long long time ago I had a conversation with someone about
"kindness". And we didn't see eye to eye on it at all. The person's
position was basically that the kindness was problematic. That being
kind was somehow wrong. I tried to take what was being told and put it
into terms I could understand but it was stretch and I didn't really
see it. I thought about it a long time, but I didn't get what the heck
she was talking about.

So of course more recently I have ranted about "nice guys" making mockery of a lot of xanga
entries that I despised about how it is wrong to be a "nice guy". In
truth I hated both sides of the argument whenever I read them. Both the
people who proclaimed a nice guy or girl had broken their heart and so
they wished they could tear the hearts of all those like them and
trample them in the mud and the people who despaired of how they were
ridiculed or ignored for daring to try to be "nice".  Similarly I
rambled endlessly on about the question of what constitutes being
"used" versus acting out of a sense of generosity. When, if ever, I
wondered was it really possible to be "too nice"?

None
of what people said about these matters had ever made any sense to me
at all, really. Any more than my friend's proclamation long ago about
the evils of certain types of kindnesses.

I
think I finally started to understand what she and everybody else was
talking about this past night as a lay sleepless in bed overloaded on a
caffeine rush. Yes. I can be a little slow sometimes.

It isn't really about "niceness" or "kindness" at all.  It's about Moral Hypocrisy.

You see, being nice to someone primarily in order to get that person to like you is moral hypocrisy.

Being kind to one as a means to avoid one's responsibility to another is moral hypocrisy.

Generosity given out of for fear of being disliked or scorned for lack of it is moral hypocrisy.

Expecting someone to meet your standard of kindness or cruelty before you are willing to interact with them is moral hypocrisy.

And similarly for all other virtues.

Now
"Hypocrisy" is one of those charged words that we tend to try to
reserve for only the most dastardly of devils who mockingly pretends to
virtues that they truly despise.   But it really shouldn't be.
"Hypocrisy" is actually really easy to fall into and fairly difficult
to spot when you are in it. Because in truth exercising virtues truly
is not the default behavior of humanity. It's not easy to be truly
courageous or kind or honorable or pious.  It's hard. To be these things independent of our wants, irrespective of our desires is hard.
Our motives are almost always questionable and are always far more
complex than they seem. To some extent or another, it could easily be
argued that we are *all*hypocrites, at least some of the time.

So..
it should be no surprise that frequently we observe or believe,
sometimes accurately, sometimes erroneously, that someone is exercising
a virtue such as kindness, but doesn't really mean it.
Or perhaps that person is doing it for less than noble reasons. And we
get annoyed. We say, "you're too nice" or "nice guys are assholes". 
But what we mean is, generally, something more like "I don't believe
you are acting consistently and for the right reasons".  And perhaps it
is not even a critique that is so critical as all that. Maybe the
person's acts are only unsettling to you because you feel on some level
that there has to be more to it than the
person is letting on. That a person cannot act in such a fashion
without there being more to their motives than a simple desire to be a
good person.

Of course, much strife could be avoided if we learn simply to talk out the "Whys"
of when we make a choice be it for good or ill. We should not feel
afraid or ashamed to question someone about what their motives are. If
we understand where one another are coming from there will be less
surprises and less bitterness will result.

It's important to note that not all
ulterior motives are bad. And that an act of good has ulterior motives
does not make it any less an act of good. Maybe we are being a little
hypocritical when we proclaim that we are doing some good "because it
is the right thing to do" when in truth we are doing it for a whole
huge mixed bag of reasons half of which we don't really understand
ourselves. But even so, if it is the right thing to do, it is still the
right thing to do, and that is, if we are good people at least a part
of why we do it. For that alone, good acts, do deserve some
recognition, even when they are moral hypocrisy.

For
those of us who are, known for acting inordinately in line with a
particular virtue (for example someone people say is super-nice or
incredibly brave, or excessively humble), it is all the more important
for us to examine closely our motivations behind our acts and be
willing and able to explain them. We have to believe in them too, those
motivations, or be prepared to change our behavior to one more in line
with the norms of society. Because, to be sure, nobody is more the
target of skeptical scrutiny than the person who seems to act as a
saint. Perfect selflessness is rare if it even exists. If you think
that you are being so, most likely you are full of it.

Here's
an example that ties all this together from my own life.  I used to
have this job I really really hated. But after all my friends had quit
the job and I had gotten all the experience I needed from it, I stayed
on. Week after week. Month after month. I kept going even though I
hated it.  I used to talk to my friend who used to work at the same job
once a week or so and he would, kind soul that he was, constantly talk
to me, trying to indirectly convince me to quit this stupid job.

But
I didn't listen. Every time we talked I would argue and try to explain
why I couldn't quit just then. I said I thought it was wrong to abandon
the company. I said that I want to do good by them even if they weren't
so nice to me. I said that I loved my boss, which was true, that he was
the nicest guy in the world and that if I left, especially right after
my friends had quit, he would be inundated with work because there were
so many things that I was the only other person who knew how to do. I
thought it was wrong, and so I proclaimed, to do that to him. It was
his fault the company was full of other people I despised.

So
out of kindness, I thought I was staying. Out of a desire to do good.
But my friend didn't really buy it. He thought and said that I was
crazy not to leave because it would make my boss feel bad.

And
he was right too to question my motives. I was not nearly so selfless
as all that. There were a lot of other reasons I didn't quit too. One
big one was fear. Fear of the confrontation that might arise if I quit.
Fear of being looked badly upon by my former coworkers. Fear of hurting
people and making life harder for them. Fear that this might come back
to bite me in the future if my former coworkers held a grudge. But also
just the basic fear of just talking to my boss. That thought of that
encounter terrified me. I'm not good with people. I didn't want to do.
It was sort of like stage fright. And I'm worse with that kind of thing
than anybody I know. I really really dreaded it.

There
were other reasons too I don't generally talk about as much. Early on
in that job I screwed up really really bad. And all along I felt a huge
amount of guilt about that mistake. I wanted to make up for it. I
really felt I had to. I wanted to earn the respect and admiration of my
peers that I had lost when I made that mistake. It was a huge blow to
my pride and a massive sense of shame that drove me. I wanted to stay
and fix everything. I wanted to make everything great. I wanted to get
some sort of accolades or recognition so that I knew I had done a good
job. It was more than that too. I also hated the environment there. I
felt as if I should have been able to help fix it. I've had a problem
all my life with encountering conflicts that feel like they are within
my grasp, that I understand well enough to be able to help, but then
proving inadequate to really make a different. The guilt over that
haunted me too. I kept thinking I would try harder next time.

And
so I stayed on the job until something finally inspired me to quit. But
it was wasted months and wasted years all because I wasn't ever honest
with myself about what my real motives were. When I proclaimed that I
was doing the right thing by not quiting, by not looking for another
job that would be better for me, I was being a moral hypocrite. 

And
yet, I don't necessarily think not quiting was evil or wrong. It was
just... complicated. It was not the most effective choice for me for my
long term future that's for sure. And so in that sense it was at least
very irresponsible. But in a way it was good too. I did help people
while I was there. At least I hope I did. And that was one of the
reasons I did it.

Things like that have
always been an issue for me. People have proclaimed me "too nice" and
have worried that I might be "used" or have even become annoyed and
angry at me for the "kindness" they perceive as being "fake".  They are
right to worry. I don't pretend to know or understand all the motives
behind my choices. I know though that there is some hypocrisy in them.
I know that there are a lot of reasons behind every act. I know that I
am not really consistent.

But at the same
time I constantly strive to be. To do the right things for the right
reasons no matter what anyone thinks of me. My goal is to know and
understand all my motives for every act so well that I can proclaim
them truly and defend them. That way I can be good without being seen
as a hypocrite. 



But I'm still working on that.