revenge.

While walking with my housemates, I asked the question, “what is your favorite revenge story?” and they refused to respond to it. In their minds, to seek revenge or enjoy it means one has to be vindictive. I understand this position and elaborated on the query highlighting that all people are capable of thinking vengeful things even if they do not act on them. One housemate conceded that their pettiness may be rooted in vengeance. But they felt it did not warrant being spoken of. So let’s talk about vengeance.

I am not vengeful. But that does not mean I have not gloated in a karmic return on occasion. But if I revisit my last attempt at a romantic relationship before I met my soulmate, I do know I am capable of being highly vindictive on occasion. I do and do not enjoy such when the opportunity and the passion for vengeance coincide. It depends on the situation. Most of the time, I leave vengeance to my deities. I do not need to take the time an energy to seek revenge out for me. If someone slighted me to the point that I was triggered to be petty or want to seek to hurt them in some capacity, I take a pause and look at why I am allowing that situation or that individual influence my state of being. Even when the situation would suggest to other observers that striking back would be useful.

I asked that last romantic attempt what their favorite reveng story was and they gave me this-

A friend of hers was involved with a male in her social circle. He did something, not cheating mind you, that was designed to hurt the friend. She wanted revenge on this male. So they went to the male’s house and laid down tacks and nails behinds his tires. The male went to take his car out for a drive and punctured all his tires in his drive. They ran into the male later on that day to hear him moaning about the financial blow of the tire replacement. She gloated about this incident as the male was notorious for doing questionable things. I found her glee in relaying this interesting. I do not recall the other details of how she and the friend set up this act but she was glad to help.

I like to think I would choose to something different should I be put in such a situation. While I have noticed in certain songs that destroying a car is cathartic, I also know that ruining a car can ruin a livelihood. If that is the goal of the revenge, then that is what the revenge seeker should do. But in my dark way of thinking, I would want to be goddess level spiteful. At least I would try to if allowed to. I mentioned that I plotted a revenge on my time waster that would have changed my personage to a lot of people and would have committed me to living with a choice I would never be able to take back if I succeded. I would have enjoyed it for a bit I think. I know I enjoyed dreaming it up for a few weeks.

But to act on it, have that be a part of my history, I could not tell that story out of fear of people no longer trusting me with their personal secrets. That kind of story, that kind of emotional weight, would have ruined me in a lot of ways. I am glad to have thought of the plot as it is helpful to know how deep my fury goes but I am glad I did not put the plan in place. I would have been forever conflicted about it. Doing it would have me putting a price tag on my emotions and my capability to forgive myself and someone for hurting me. I needed to set my bar higher than that for my awakening to occur with out too much damage to my willingness to be elevated.

But that does not stop my interest in people that choose to take vengeance as a part of their lifestyle. This is part of the reason I enjoy a good crime movie like Ocean’s Eleven or Flawless with Demi Moore. Moving with a larger motivation than oneself or at the benefit of someone else taken joy in the situation sparks my interest. I don’t look at these for ideas to execute crimes but I look at the motive that puts one in the position to dedicate their time to vengeance in the first place. I find the ways of execution interesting in the same way I enjoy a magic show in some way but outside of these realms of thinking, it is equally fascinating that crime is usually the space where we allow such clever actions to take place in the movie script space.

I recently showed one of my housemates a John Waters favorite, Serial Mom. This movie is based on a woman taking vengeance on people that slighted her or her family members. I find this parody of a serial killer masked as housewife as mildy amusing if not a bitter commentary on White culture. She found it a waste of two hours. Aside from my opinions on this critique, we entered a discussion on other aspects of this movie from the absurdism of it, the romantisizing of murderers in our society and and how the humor of gore or murder was not something that she found amusing. We never talked about the motive for the murders- simple vengeance. I don’t know if not addressing this reinforces the housemate’s positon that they are not vengeful but I looked at this movie as an opportunity to look at vengeance as a motive.

But then, I choose to look at human darkness in the face.