Tyranny of evil men

Hi, this is Steve Barnes here with today's edition of Life Writing Live. And I'm happy today because I'm going to be going out to the Renaissance Pleasure Fair in just a few minutes. Actually, no, in just about. Let's see, what time is it? In about 90 minutes, I'm going out there. My daughter's coming up and I get to see my Nikki. So I have a lot to give thanks for and thought I'd share a message with you today. Hopefully you're going to enjoy this because I enjoyed putting it together, enjoyed thinking about it. Sometimes I just dash stuff off and other times I stop and think about it a little bit more. First of all, if you enjoy these messages, please share. It's the way that I know which ones are really appealing to people. Okay, great. Life Writing is, of course, looking at the connection between storytelling and consciousness and life on a level that goes beyond mere entertainment. So let's take a look at that. People sometimes ask, you know, what is the value of storing? Well, let me tell you one. About 35 years ago, I encountered a Jehovah's Witness on Hollywood Boulevard. It was really rough, big rough looking guy. And he started his spiel and I found him to be a little bit curious because my hindbrain was reacting to him as if he was a mugger. I mean, he just had the body language and just his hands were rough. And he's exactly the kind of guy would have crossed the street to avoid. And here he is speaking of the word of God. And I had about a half hour before I was supposed to be at work. I was working at General Nutrition center at the time on Island Boulevard. And so I engaged with him and I was having fun. And his arguments were all memorized. He just had his spiel. So it was very easy to poke holes in them. And if I shifted the question or the answer just a little bit outside the script, he couldn't deal with it at all. And it was almost kind of fun until I started noticing that he was getting angry that he couldn't shift me, angry that I was challenging him. In some ways that struck me as being pre violent behavior. That was one of the earliest times when I had been investigating that question of what is anger actually? And the idea that anger is a masculine feeling. Well, if I was to try to use that idea here, what would it reveal? What did he have to be afraid of? And something occurred to me, a pretty simple explanation, and that is that he struck me as a violent man because he'd done violent Things that I could see him easily having walked on the shady side of the law, so to speak. And that in an attempt to kind of save himself, in some ways he found salvation, or at least a way to stop his downward slide with a leap of faith, a literal leap of faith in powers beyond his own. And he'd been afraid of destroying himself, you know, guilty, perhaps, of things he'd done. And all that guilt and fear was barricaded behind his faith, his conviction that if he could stay on this new path, he was forgiven. And it hit me that I was wrong, stupid, to poke holes in a faith like that. It may have been smart. It may have been smart to see the flaws in it, but it wasn't wise. I had nothing to replace his faith with. I wasn't going to become a friend of his and be part of a committed community of believers who would help him if he started to backslide. I wasn't going to do that. I was smart to see the flaws in his reasoning. But wisdom was understanding why he needed these basic beliefs. I'd seen evolved, brilliant versions of everything he said, people who were, you know, college educated and totally reasonable and rational and understood and could dovetail everything and make it all fit together. And they were great, you know, great people and great to talk to and good people, and had rock solid beliefs in what it is that they were saying. No problem. They had an understanding that went far beyond the simple analogies and explanations of the script that he'd been given. He couldn't grasp these deeper answers. In essence, I was mugging him intellectually. I was taking his wallet in an alley darker than midnight, his own troubled soul. I wasn't the good guy here. I began to backtrack, allowing him to win a few points of discussion and admitting that one of his arguments struck home and promising that I think carefully about what he said, that I went on my way and left him on the corner trying to help people. I wasn't exactly lying. I mean, I have thought about that conversation for 35 years, and I think that my interaction with him has made me a better man, because I grasp that we all have journeys. We've all fallen short of perfection. Because no matter how far and how fast you run, you're always the same distance from the horizon. None of us are perfect unless perfection, like the word master, is viewed as a verb, not a noun, a vector, not a position. He was a hero on his own journey, and he touched me more than he knew. Not because of the script he parodied, but because of who he was, who he was trying to be in the world. There's a great scene at the very end of the movie, Pulp Fiction scene, that pretty much cemented my belief that this movie, which was the first I ever saw by Tarantino, was the debut of a master. It wasn't actually his first film, of course, but that was my first exposure to him and I was completely blown away. Do you remember how that movie begins? Pulp Fiction? It begins with two small time robbers, Honey Bunny and Pumpkin. They're terrorizing a diner. Then the rest of the movie is a demonstration of the actual world of no bullshit, lethal men with contempt for life but oddly powerful codes of honor. Two of them, Jules and Vincent, played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, are almost killed while executing a trio of thieves. Vincent. John Travolta sees the incident rather Jules. Samuel Jackson sees the incident as evidence that his life must change. He plans to quit, you know, the criminal life and walk the earth like Cain and Kung Fu, making atonement. Vincent, on the other hand, you know, John Travolta thinks this is stupid. And when you unravel the timeline of the movie, you can see exactly how each attitude turned out. No spoilers here, but at the very end of the non linear film, Vincent and Jules end up confronting Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, who had been, like I said, pretending to be tough and dangerous to intimidate a crowd. Faced with real killers, they collapse into near catatonic panic. Jules allows them to take his money, but not the suitcase he retrieved from the thieves. And the question why this lethal man would do such a thing leads to the following monologue. I am by no means Samuel Jackson, but let me try to do this. He's pointing a gun right in Pumpkin's face. There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. Now, I've been saying that shit for years, and if you ever heard it, that meant your ass, you'd be dead right now. I never gave much thought but meant I just thought it was a cold blooded thing to say to a motherfucker. Before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this morning made me think twice. You see? Now I'm thinking. Maybe it means. You're the evil man and I'm the righteous man. And Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd. Protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean. You're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd. And it's the world that's evil and selfish. And I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is that you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd. That's what my friend on Hollywood Boulevard was trying. To be the shepherd. And in that instance, my need to be right. Made me not only weak, but evil, too. Tyrannizing him with tools gleaned from wiser men. For the sheer purpose of salving my own ego. By letting him be the shepherd. I became one my odd how that happens. By understanding his story, I changed my own. Have a wonderful day. Namaste. Steve Barnes www.lifewritingprevium.com.