Men who kill

What kind of a person wants to kill others? One who is afraid. One who believes that they must kill first or they will be killed. You were in control, until you met me. You compete with me like you compete with everyone else because you need to conquer me. If I sing louder than you, dance harder than you, laugh more than you, then I’m a threat. I’m a threat not because you are simply jealous, but deep down you believe that if I’m stronger or smarter than you then I will kill you. Every moment of every day, with everyone you interact with, you wear a mask. Not for vanity but because every person may kill you. Every interaction must be calculated with caution.

Your father wanted to kill you indirectly and without a trace of guilt, the way you try to kill me. You try to kill me with seduction and rage and guilt and suggestion. He didn’t want to be a father, he didn’t want to take care of you. He wished you would simply go away. So you learned to let yourself be a target of abuse for his pain, as an outlet for him. To make yourself useful to him, because it was better than dying. 

The philosopher Hobbes believed the worst in men, in our brutal nature. He believed that if left alone, we would all kill each other. The law of society is based on one agreement: that if we kill each other we will be held accountable. The majority of men are conditioned to cooperate and not kill. Your father is the anomaly, and the civilization you know is not the one most of us live in, nor is it the one you live in now. But it is not a guarantee that no one will try to kill you. It means there exists some people who will and who won’t, and to face the reality that we are responsible to discern this is a brutal journey. In your certainty that everyone will want to kill you, you have one single source of comfort, the only one you have ever known your whole life: certainty itself. But you will always have more chances of survival adapting to reality as it is.