Dark Sentiments 2012 – Day 30: If You Didn’t Want It There, Why Did You Bring It?
Posted By Randy on October 30, 2012
In my life I have spent countless hours alone in what many would refer to as “wilderness”; or “lonely” places. Some people are horrified, and those are the people who have never learned the difference between being lonely and being alone. Likewise, when someone hears that I just came back from a reclusive week in the back country, it’s not uncommon for them to ask, “Don’t you get bored?”
My answer is always the same – I don’t get bored when I’m alone. I need other people for that. Hard on the heels of this revelation, I will point out that in the eleven years since Mrs. LFM, there is no alone in the back country, and even less chance of boredom.
The next most often asked question is, “Weren’t you scared?”
Of what? Of evil overpowering good? How sure are you that I fit your definition of good, or evil for that matter. What if my evil is less or greater than the evil that hunts me? Does that make the lesser evil “good”. If we have this debate in a grave yard at midnight, will it matter?
I do not consider good or evil to be connected to supernatural events, nor do I consider them Natural for they do not exist in Nature unless somebody brought them to the party. Man is the only animal who makes the distinction, so that narrows the list of suspects.
If good or evil are committed in a forest, and nobody is around to witness them, did they still happen? Surely you jest. There will most certainly be a bipedal primate skulking nearby who preferred no living witnesses.
Who Packed Your Bags?
By LFM
The lore abounds with demons
And dark things that rend and slay.
Things that wake to hunt the night,
And then it’s HELL to pay!
Their evil’s said to fall upon
Who finds himself alone.
Prey for every monstrous thing
That haunts the Twilight Zone.
You know the tale – a lonely place –
A hopeless victim’s path
Awakes a thing that feeds the while
Unleashing bloody wrath.
Well, for my part, I won’t accept
That good or evil dwell
In lands of mysticality
Like Heaven or like Hell.
A tomb is but a solemn place,
It’s neither bad nor good.
No worse than any desert is,
Nor any darkling wood.
In the Valley of the Shadow,
If the only Man I be,
All good and evil found within
Is what I brought with me.
Those questions about you being lonely in the back country, seems like a typical preconception. I hear this one a lot when teaching classes. Not so much in “martial art” classes, more in tai chi classes. Someone new will come in and question why I am showing tai chi as a martial art. Usually they will say something like “I am not into violence”, spitting the phrase out in the most passive/agressive tone imaginable. I usually reply something like this:
“Why do you think that understanding how to use a martial art for the way it was intended is violence? Did I say or do something violent? Maybe the violence is in your mind?”
I don’t want people like that in my classes anyway. I do teach a few classes for “seniors” where tai chi is presented strictly for balance, strength, etc. But in my normal classes, it is my duty and responsibility to teach the art the way I learned it, and the way it was shown to me. People do bring their own junk with them, then they want to dump it on you and everyone else!
Truth! It’s an unfortunate fact that the least schooled in any subject have the most reflexively expressed opinions on it. You should hear what comes out of the mouths of people who find out we’re Dog trainers. Of course, in the other direction, it’s a seriously loaded issue to expound on the evils of certain breeds when we’re in hearing range. While we can be socially diplomatic, neither of us has ever practiced diplomacy professionally.