So, I was talking with a friend last week about chipper stuff—mortality, death, and whatnot.
We were discussing how the scariest moment in anyone’s life is the minute one recognizes a parent as a person. Not Mom or Dad. Just regular everyday people.
What if you met one of your parents in the grocery store like a regular stranger— would you like them? Would you respect them? Would you want to know them better? If you had grown up together as peers, would you have been friends with your Mom? Had a crush on your dad?
Try to wrap your head around it for minute—it’s not easy. It’s probably uncomfortable. It is for me.
It’s weird when you remove familiarity and force yourself to see people for what they are and not what they have become. If you ask any person to name three people they admire most, there is a decent chance one of their parents is going to be on that list. And yet, those same people might not even take the time to be friends with that same person if they were not related.
They say familiarity breeds contempt. I don’t think that’s always true.
Look at this picture:
I mean, HOLY CRAP is that a handsome man or what?
Get past the fact that he looks like the fifth member of Mumford and Sons and see him for something more. That face. That smoldering gaze. Now get ready for a downer…
It’s Joseph Stalin.
Or as he was known back then, Iosif Dzhugashvili, the twenty-something year-old son of a humble cobbler from a small town, who had only recently been kicked out of a seminary for lack of tuition payments. He wanted to devote his life to helping the poor through God but they kicked him out for being too poor. Irony much? From most accounts back then, Iosf was well-liked and respected in his community. He stood 5’4” and had a withered left arm and everyone thought he was handsome. This photo, a mugshot, was taken in 1906, just as he was becoming what we would probably call a “community activist.” By 1934 he would kill fifty million people. Let me repeat that: Fifty. Million. People. Some of them are probably relatives of people who are reading this blog, yet here I am wondering why nobody put this man on the cover of Tiger Beat.
Now raise your hand if you feel like an asshole.
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| Forsythia flowers get their name for their foresight — They are the first spring blooms to trumpet the arrival of a new season and the beauty that waits in the months ahead. |
Where am I going with this?
I don’t know.
Last week, when everything was going on in Boston, I kept thinking about that photo of Stalin – not because there was some sort of Russian/Jerkoff/Delusions of Grandeur connection, but because I wondered if those brothers ever thought about the impact of their actions. Did they know what would become of their lives? Just like I wonder if the man in that photo ever thought about what would become of him, his life, his legacy. Did these men, all of them, know, truly know, they were choosing a path of hate and harm?
Did they think their actions would be worth the consequences? Or did they think, deep down, that they were operating for some higher purpose?
Look, it’s not that hard to understand how one person can act out in blind rage alone – mental illness takes to reasoning like a truck takes to a turtle – but, how do multiple people buy into the same delusions? How do people who start out good and normal and well-adjusted turn into murderous zealots? How did Iosif Dzhugashvili turn into Joseph Stalin?
And here is what’s really scary; What is to stop you or me or you or anyone else from heading down that road?
We think we know ourselves inside and out. Mothers always think they know their children better than anyone else, and yet, whenever there is some horrible and violent story on the news, who is always the first person they trot out in front of the camera, crying and blathering about how He could never do this and I have known him all his life – he wouldn’t hurt a fly and all those other things we have all heard 100 times? It’s the mother. It’s always the mother. The person who knows them best is never the one to see it first. Likewise, the child who thinks they know everything about their parent might not have even scratched the surface to viewing them as people, objectively, and not just good ol’ Mom or Dad.
Stuff like this bothers me. It keeps me up at night. I spend hours thinking about what sort of crazy breeds within me and my loved ones and then I have to watch videos of fat puppies in salad bowls just to calm down. It’s pretty disturbing. I digress…
What I’m saying is that basically, we’ve all been there – and if we haven’t, we should. We should let ourselves think about this stuff and not brush it off as a freak incident or someone else’s problem. I’m not advocating for paranoia, I’m advocating for thoughtfulness.
I firmly believe that second-guessing the familiar brings me a step closer to foresight and preparedness, and more importantly, it makes me appreciate all those things and people I might otherwise take for granted. At least that is what I tell myself. I tell myself lots of things… like, that it’s good to acknowledge the unpredictable because that means we might have a skootch of a chance at spotting it sooner.
It’s good to recognize that each of us has it within us to create magnificent acts of kindness, as well as frightening acts of terror.
It’s good to recognize we do not know ourselves, or our loved ones, as well as we might think.
…and then it’s time for more fat puppies.
Your post gave me a chill. I like your phrase ‘second-guessing the familiar.’ It is all frightening stuff, and if you think about it, the most terrifying movies aren’t the one with masses of computer generated monsters of gallons of blood. They’re the ones that twist ordinary life to play on our fears in subtle ways.
Thanks for the fat puppies.
Exactly. It’s the ordinary stuff…the everyday people…that cause the most terrifying events. Good thing for puppies 😉
As someone who is planning to work in mental health (forensics, specifically), I have always “known” or “realized” (“…” because how do you really :know: something like this??) that the line between the criminal or patient across the table from me is a thin line away from ME. How that woman across from me had almost identical life history as I do, and yet, she’s the one in the State Womens Prison for chopping off her BF’s special happiness. That line is so thin, and sometimes it is transparent… it’s like the line between black and white – you cannot always differentiate between the two, and where do you make the line to begin with?? I’m with ya, Aunt Peaches, and I think about it alot. But I turn to my doggies in real life vs. youtube puppies, lol. Same effect. =)
Let me clarify: I have both worked in mental health (and social work) and will be continuing there in the forensics field. Sorry about the lack of clarification!
Holy cats…her BF’s special happiness? Wow. Then again, now I type that and yeah…there have been moments. I can’t imagine working in mental health without losing control of my marbles. Props to you!
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I’ve had to think about this question a lot at various jobs. Ehen horrific events happen, people start searching for a ’cause’, some initial mover that prompted, because otherwise we have to face how little you can know someone, how little control you have over others….etc…hence the popularity of r fat puppy videos. And LOLcats.
In reality, it’s rarely one cause but several intertwined in a unique way. Sometimes you can’t rationalize crazy. And often what one reads about the supposedly normal childhood isn’t the whole story. Parents will say things to the media because they can’t bear to think/face otherwise.
Seeing parents as people is a whole ‘nother topic.
I’ve had to think about this question a lot at various jobs. Ehen horrific events happen, people start searching for a ’cause’, some initial mover that prompted, because otherwise we have to face how little you can know someone, how little control you have over others….etc…hence the popularity of r fat puppy videos. And LOLcats.
In reality, it’s rarely one cause but several intertwined in a unique way. Sometimes you can’t rationalize crazy. And often what one reads about the supposedly normal childhood isn’t the whole story. Parents will say things to the media because they can’t bear to think/face otherwise.
Seeing parents as people is a whole ‘nother topic.
I think you hit it right there “you can’t rationalize crazy”…that’s what makes it especially disturbing.
I couldn’t agree more. As a mother I have thought of this concept many times. What if my sweet little boy isn’t always sweet? It’s very important to think about and yet thank god for fat puppies.
I think just the fact that you are willing to admit that he might not always be *that* sweet is a good indication he’ll come out sweeter than most. It takes a lot for any mom to be objective about her kids — a sign of good things to come 🙂
As a pacifist and a mother of a boy who is VERY interested in all things “army guy”, I tell myself two things:
1) teach him empathy
2) teach him he is loved
And I tell my husband: crazy runs in your family, so that’s totally your department.
Ha! Crazy is his department…ha!
too much to put into words. you know my drama… turning a blind eye to the little things, or denying things even if we have an inkling that they are not right (within us or what we see in others) can leave us blindsided when catastrophe hits.
Amen to that!
For me, I feel there is a big difference between the capability to commit a crime of passion (non premeditated) and a dispassionate, methodical, planned crime. I think that in the case of the later, there are signs, even if they go ignored, that a person is capable of such acts. (Serial killers for example- there is usually something in their childhood to indicate serious issues- the torturing of animals, etc.) While Stalin may have been handsome, good looking does not equal good. If people had nice things to say about him, I would conclude he was likely highly manipulative. (Another example- Ted Bundy, good looking, charming, highly manipulative, etc.)
I do think though in the case of crimes of passion, there is a fine line between most of us and those who commit those crimes. (Like the woman who cut off her bf’s happiness.) The wrong combination of events, environment, etc., and it could be us.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
We are all experts at deluding ourselves when the truth is uncomfortable. I am sure many mothers know in their heart of hearts that their child is an awful person, but they can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that. It’s too painful.
I listened to this piece a few days ago, and it can offer you some insight:
http://www.theworld.org/2013/04/what-motivates-terrorism/
“First of all, they’re almost always young men. There’s almost always this what you might call the “testosterone issue”. They’re young men with a lot of energy, a lot of frustrations. They want to do something, they don’t know what, and that often leads to a lot of alienation. Then you have them identifying with a narrative, and this is a point where there’s usually a lot of confusion. “
Well said Peaches. Well said.
I am in no way excusing or rationalizing what the brothers did, but I’m disturbed by how much the word ‘evil’ has been bandied about since this happened. It’s too blanket a statement to say they were (or are) ‘evil’ and simply leave it at that. In the absence of insanity, these types of events don’t happen in a vacuum. They are a reaction, albeit horrifying and seemingly senseless, to real or perceived offenses. To label it simply evil removes the perpetrators’ humanity and makes it impossible for us to be able to relate to the totality of their experience. This is where the ‘us and them’ mentality originates, which only serves to exacerbate, perpetuate, and ultimately escalate the cycle of misunderstanding, hatred, oppression, and terrorism. I realize that I’m going to raise a lot of hackles by saying this, but those among us who condemn an entire religion, ethnicity, race or nationality scare me far, far more than all the terrorists out there. If we’re truly forgiving, truly concerned for our fellow humans, then should we not have compassion for those who are angry and desperate enough to kill?
YESSS. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. I don’t know what else to say except that you said exactly what I *wanted* to say but better and with less words. That is it exactly.
The ‘Us vs Them’….this is ‘Somebody else’s problem’…that was something ‘They should have seen coming’…blah blah blah — this cycle of blaming it on someone else has got to stop. The brother’s might have been someone else’s sons, but they were our children. They are the result of a million sequential influences, not just the “face of evil” and we all play a role in fostering a society that would beget that kind of thinking in the first place.
Whew…soapbox…I’m stepping off it.
I think that this type of reflection also points out that there are no “evil people.” I sometimes wondered what the world would be like and how we treat eachother might change if we all wore buttons with our kindergarden pictures on them.
I think we might have a little more compassion for eachother!
there are days when i wonder about the lies behind the mask we all wear to hide who we really are. I firmly believe we are all born without morals, compassion, empathy. We are taught those things by our parents, caregivers, etc. And some people just never get the lesson.
This line is really bothering me! The terrorists enjoyed scholarships from their adopted country, attended a prestigious university, enjoyed the greatness of Boston and freedom and benefits of our country. They carefully planned to injure and kill as many people as they could. Russia warned the F.B.I. that the older brother was a terrorist. I wonder if your humanity would be stirred if the people hurt or killed were your son, sister, daughter, husband, wife, mother, father, brother.
I’ve lived in many different countries, so I am not ignorant. I just want to remind you our country values human life and freedom so much we will give the killer a fair trial and defense. No other country would grant that.
I’m not sure what specific line is bothering you but I don’t think anyone here is arguing the awfulness of what the brothers did. The issue is what path it took to get them there in the first place.
Also, no. Many countries have legal systems that provide the accused an opportunity for a fair trial and defense counsel. Not all of them, but many.
Fair enough. I was unclear. People are naively trying to understand and reason how an individual can become so violent. “I sometimes wondered what the world would be like and how we treat each other might change if we all wore buttons with our kindergarden pictures on them. I think we might have a little more compassion for each other!” and “we all play a role in fostering a society that would beget that kind of thinking in the first place.” We are unable to wrap our minds around fanaticism and radical islamism. If their American experience had been more sweet, it would not have changed their brainwashing.
Bless you for bringing in “the fat puppies.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Peaches- I love how honest and well written your posts are. I love that I always find something interesting, thought provoking, or hilarious on the pages of Aunt Peaches.
I honestly did not recognize that my parents were people till this post…
As always…amazing read from Aunt Peaches. Thanks again lady!
He didn’t single handedly kill those people of course…Perhaps that charismatic gaze helped though…We like to think as ONE being the reason, THE evil, {aka Hitler} but it took many. Without those willing to be the murders, the bigoted, the haters…History would be quite different.
Thanks for this interesting post.