Ayn Rand

"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube. indecisiveness .. "

Ayn Rand

Scott Dunlop

Its standard police procedure (I’m assuming it is- I’m an expert on it having watched police programs from Kojak to Dexter), to ask the surviving relatives if the stiff, or the vic, had any enemies, so that they can ID the perp.

This is a useful debriefing procedure when you are interrogating yourself in the wee hours. One of you sits hunched in a chair, hollow-eyed and jonesin’ for a coffee or a smoke, while the other circles you. No good cop, bad cop, but rather just a mean lying rat-assed bastard of an inquisitor, second guessing everything you thought was true, but now have lost your bearings with. The lack of sleep and the constant revisiting of scenes of crimes, real and imagined warp the timelines and coordinates of reality. Soon you are adding to your mild wrongdoings a list of heinous activities that is almost genocidal in its documented form. The endless questioning has you longing for the stark comfort of your cell, where the fears and memories are contained and almost disarmed.

So what you need to do is ask what or who your enemies are. For some it maybe the guy at work who shamelessly takes credit for your labours but belittles you in meetings. It could be a family member with whom you refuse to share space at family events. Could be an actual enemy, who has genuinely threatened you. But don’t forget to add yourself to the list of suspects. Yup. Who knows better about how to mess with your head than you? Who can flick your buttons and twist your screws? Who knows that the worst kind of enemy is one from whom you cannot hide?

It’s not a death sentence. You can separate the fictions from the realities, and parse the evil from the good. The best defense against an inner enemy is an inner ally. It helps to surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth, and provide reinforcements of encouragement and love. Thank you for doing that.

Scott Dunlop