Revenge
NYC
How do you like it? Hot, sweet, or perhaps stone cold? Perhaps you like to take your time about it, or maybe you prefer it quick and nasty.
Revenge is a pleasure much disdained yet comes in many delicious flavours. Naturally, as a ”healthy”, “evolved” sort of person, one is expected to shun all of them and take the pious high road, to “move on”, perhaps with the help of a nice, motherly therapist, secure in the delusion that the sinner will “get theirs”. Ah, karma! - much beloved of hippes and other lazy sorts. Because what if they don’t get theirs? After all, Idi Amin lived out the latter part of his life in luxury in Saudi Arabia.
Sometimes karma needs a little nudge.
I would argue, too, that under the right circumstances, revenge can be very healing for the one who takes the time and trouble to dispense it properly. Not to say that going on the rampage after someone looks disparagingly at your pretty new lime green jacket is ever a good idea. Ditto burning down someone’s house and killing their whole family. Simply put, these acts are usually far disproportionate to the crime (although not always).
Years ago, I had a flatmate who absolutely refused to do her share of cleaning the bathroom. I dropped hints, I reasoned, I tried making a little joke out of the predicament; all those namby pamby, reluctant and utterly ineffectual English ways. But, incensed, the problem consumed me. Life was not the same. And one day I did something about it.
I spent what was a most memorable afternoon, happily, gleefully cleaning the the sink, the bath, and lastly the toilet with such vigour and thoroughness as could only be achieved using a toothbrush. Just not my toothbrush.
This was the true meaning of self-help, I realised. It was an epiphany. I had, all by myself, come to terms with a situation I could not change. No longer angry, I just felt an enormous sense of release, of catharsis. Neither did she even need to know about it; in fact part of the pleasure was knowing she didn’t. We got along much better after that and sometimes, if I happened to pass by when she was brushing her teeth, I would feel warm inside, reliving that wonderful feeling of calm and serenity.
Copyright Britical 2007. All rights reserved.