No Victims

Sometimes I like to read over my old journal entries. They always bring me some sort of perspective on my life - usually, I feel somewhat silly or embarrassed. But I've learned to be more compassionate with myself - that's how I felt then and it was real.

The hard part is that reading those entries shows me how crazy I've been - and some of it wasn't even that long ago that I was crazy. The truth is, I sometimes still feel crazy now. I'm getting better at keeping my crazy at bay, but I'm just barely able to do it. I attribute my ability to do it at all to my sobriety. Thank GOD I'm sober!

I often feel so badly that I'm so alone, without a lover and I've been without much close companionship at all for the past bunch of years. But now I see that I've needed to take some distance - from myself and others - in order to really grow up. I'm still growing up, too. I've had to do it for myself because I didn't get the right tools when I was younger, for whatever reasons. It doesn't matter now.

Growing up doesn't mean not having fun or being silly or giddy like a child. It means behaving the way you intend to behave - which is to be the best you that you can be. The other half of it is to acknowledge when you are not able to be that way, when you have failed or screwed up, apologizing and learning from your mistakes. Lastly, as I see it, growing up means being able to sit in your pain without trying to escape it - which is where addictions come from (the attempt to escape the pain). This ability takes faith that the pain will pass and that you will make it through to the other side.

Anyway, I accept that I chose to be alone in order to get healthy. It's been lonely, yes. But I believe I will make it to the other side where the loneliness will diminish, subside, and where I'll have the opportunity to find a loving partner with whom I may enjoy the remainder of my life. There will be times of more and less loneliness, but I believe it will diminish overall.

I do not have to be a celibate monk if I do not want to be one. I can find love. I will when it's right for me, when the universe conspires to make it so. I'm not a victim of the will of the universe - I am part of it. It is my will.

Rewritten

I've listened to this one RadioLab episode on memory a gazillion times (ok, maybe 3-4 times) because it's the only one that actually got downloaded to my iTunes library. (ok, it was an episode on memory and forgetting - but I guess I forgot that part! Ha!) One of the most astonishing features of the episode is on the experiments that were performed on rodents, then in human trials, that showed the use of a ribosomal inhibitor (which blocks protein formation) in blocking memory formation, then they showed how it could also "erase" memories when the rat or human was remembering that particular memory, kind of like the idea in that Jim Carey movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

So, actually, I have a strong opinion about their interpretation of the results - they (the scientists and the show's producers/creators) are trying to suggest that they can actually erase these traumatic memories that the people in the trials had. What they showed was that this inhibitor drug actually de-coupled their traumatic emotions from the memories, rather than erasing the memories, themselves. I think that's actually the key element in the story - this decoupling of emotion from memory. Even in the rat experiments, they cannot say whether or not they erased the memory of the shock or if they just erased the fright that they associated with the shock, as conditioned to them by the signal. (I actually cannot remember the details right now of the experiment, but I do remember the gist - and I recall my emotions regarding it! I didn't take the drug.)

The other interesting part of the story that I agree with their interpretation of is that each time we remember something, we are reforming our emotional connection with that memory (again, this is how I would say it rather than reforming the memory, itself). It is like we are re-writing how we feel about the past every time we remember it. This actually makes sense, doesn't it? Doesn't this seem intuitively true?

Of course, this interpretation implies that we don't actually need to take a drug to re-write our emotional coupling with our memory, just that we need to consciously alter that emotional coupling - make that choice while actually remembering the memory. In fact, this research provides a mechanism for how talk therapy can re-wire our emotional coupling with our memories - by remembering a traumatic memory and talking through it with a therapist in a safe environment, where the therapist can help you to change your emotional out-take of that memory, you can de-couple the emotion from the event, thus resolving it to the degree of not having it affect you in the same way anymore, so that you can move on with your life.

I don't necessarily think we always need to work out our painful memories with a therapist. I also think we do it, naturally. We are constantly changing our emotional connection to memories in both directions, especially when it comes to relationships. For instance, when you're in love with someone, everything they do seems nearly perfect and you are elated with them - the memories are happy, lovely, etc. But then when there's a painful break-up, you might remember those very same events with a very different emotional connection - now it is painful, now it hurts to remember it. I think it's hard for us to know what is true and what is not - is this pain more real than the love and joy that were connected to that memory previously?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm doing some re-writing right now, too. Or re-re-writing some emotional connections to memories. The joy and the pain were both real at the times that I experienced them with this person I am remembering, but what does that mean about the true, objective reality of who this person is and how we interacted? I guess I am willing to re-write this story, or at least add an addendum to the previous one.

Dramatic Relationships

Do you ever wonder why some relationships (including friendships) are more drama-filled than others?

I sure do.

The thing is - it's clearly the relationship, not exactly just the people, you know? For instance, the same individuals, let's name them Jane and Max, can have a very good, serene relationship with each other, while Jane might have a really drama-filled relationship with, say, Tina, but Tina and Max have a fine relationship, which is not drama-filled. Maybe Max, too, has a separate relationship with someone named Jackie that is also full of drama. You see - it's not any of the individuals that are the cause of the drama - it's the relationship.

Ok, yes, there are some individuals who are more prone to drama than others - agreed. But I don't think that's the whole story. But I do think I know what the key is: the key is how at least one person in the relationship feels about the relationship - as in, I think one person (and maybe only one person) has a strong fear of losing the relationship because of whatever reasons, while the other may or may not (and maybe it's that they don't have the same fear, I'm not sure you'd necessarily get the same degree of drama if the other person felt the same way, but maybe.)

I'm thinking about this because I've been on both ends of a dramatic relationship: I've been the person who was afraid of losing the relationship because it meant too much to me, and I've also been the other person in the relationship who doesn't care as much about whether or not the relationship exists anymore. So what happens is that something triggers the person who is afraid of losing the relationship to signal that the relationship is in jeopardy, then they start feeling hurt, angry, defensive, etc. and begin to act out in telling, dramatic ways. This, of course, just drives the wedge deeper between the two people in the relationship and the person who doesn't care as much will back off even more.

Well, this is the story of the love addict and the love avoidant; or the dance of the codependents. The love addict is trying to control the situation (stop the feeling of abandonment/losss) out of a real fear of losing something that can almost feel like losing one's life. Obviously, that sounds dramatic, but that's why the behavior becomes so dramatic. The fear is of a feeling of dying - if you lose that relationship, that love, then you might as well be dead. The hard part is recognizing this feeling and bringing it to light so as to examine it and de-mystify it; grasp the reality of the situation. (As in, you're not going to die. The pain is bearable.)

Anyway, coming out of this pattern is obviously a long process and is not easy. For instance, I am recovering from love addiction, myself, and I have had these types of dramatic relationships, as I said. I can control whether or not I behave dramatically, but I cannot control whether or not others behave dramatically towards me. As I said, I've been on both ends, and even though I'm not on the one end (the love addict), I guess I still have (or have had) some relationships where I'm on the other end (the love avoidant). It's weird to be on this end and having to step away from a relationship with someone who is behaving in a way that is almost like a mirror image of myself in past relationships. It's ugly. It's unattractive. And I feel sad about it because I know how she feels.

But part of my recovery is stepping away from these relationships - not partaking in the drama anymore. If she were to change, enter recovery, whatever - that would be a different story, something else to consider. But that's not the case. So I have to step away.

But it is a reflection to consider.

I am so very sorry for how I must have made others feel. I guess that's why there's that step where we make amends. Hmmm.

This Woman

This song came up on my queue, reminding me of the need to try to make more friends, build more relationships. I don't feel great about admitting it, but I'm kind of lonely. I suppose the admission is not the thing I feel uncomfortable with - it's the fact of the feeling.

I always think of my friend, Abby, when I knew she was in the hospital, dying, when I hear this song. How I would've done anything. I asked later if it could've been possible - if I could've donated one of my lungs. Someone told me that it wouldn't really be advisable, or even maybe it was not possible at all. In any case, if one were to donate half of their lungs to save someone else, they wouldn't be able to do a lot of things - like play sports, most likely. I like to play sports. But I'd have given that up for her. Sometimes I even wish I could've switched places completely.

But yeah, that's not my decision to make. Or we already made these choices beforehand. In any case, here I am, alive, needing to keep living. Not just surviving.

I can only do so much on my own.

It would be nice to have some more human interactions. It would be nice to have a few good friends and maybe even...well, it would be nice to have some loving affection.

Ok. Well, all I can do is keep on moving forward. Take care of myself - treat myself well - and the rest will work itself out.

Bundy vs. Dahmer

In my last post, I wrote about my strange, new(ish) obsession with true crime - particularly, murder. I intend to elaborate a little in this post, focusing on the worst of the worst crimes and the people that commit them - serial killers. I think we, as a society or even just as a species, are fascinated by these people because most of us cannot fathom what makes them do what they do - why, if they were born just as innocent and precious as the rest of us, they grew up to become such horrible monsters of beings. What allows someone to commit such horrific acts?

I am interested in these questions because they are the last frontier, in my mind, of understanding/comprehending the human mind/soul. I seem to be able to understand, at least to some extent, the emotions, desires and mentality behind all other human behaviors and actions, but not behind those behaviors and actions that we tend to characterize as 'pure evil'. Maybe by understanding it, we can attempt to change it somehow, and eradicate those behaviors and actions altogether. Of course, that is a lofty hope. But one must have hope.

The other day, while washing my dishes and cooking dinner, I watched two different documentaries: one on Ted Bundy, the U.S. serial killer from the 1970's-early 1980's who attacked young women, often in their beds, to rape and murder them and was caught, tried, sentenced and executed in 1989; the other on Jeffrey Dahmer, the U.S. serial killer from the late 1970's-early 1990s who lured men into his home for sex, then he killed them, dissected and dismembered them, keeping some of their body parts as souvenirs and, on some occasions, he also cannibalized parts of them. In both documentaries, there were interviews with the serial killers. One could really get the sense for their personality in these interviews.

 
On the surface, Dahmer's murders seem much more horrific than Bundy's because of what he did with the bodies. Not only did Dahmer kill his victims, but he used their bodies for sexual pleasure (he was a "necrophiliac"). It is true that in even some cases, Dahmer's acts can be considered acts of torture since, for certain victims, he began to desecrate their bodies before they were actually dead - such as when he performed his so-called "experiments" in an attempt to create "living zombies". To perform these "experiments", Dahmer would first elicit his victims unconscious, then drill a hole into their skull and inject acid into their brains. This, of course, did not work to make "living zombies" and instead, killed his victims entirely (although it is uncertain how long this process of dying took), which caused Dahmer to continue with his usual dismemberment and other activities. His intention, however, was not about causing the victim pain, but to create an absolutely submissive lover who could never leave him. This, of course, was a fantasy that he could never fulfill despite his extreme and horrific attempts.

In contrast, Ted Bundy merely attacked, raped and brutally murdered his victims, leaving their bodies to be discovered by others, then analyzed by crime scene investigators and autopsy physicians. Surely, then, Ted Bundy is less horrific a serial killer than Jeffrey Dahmer? After watching the two documentaries with the interviews with their respective killers, I would suggest that this is not necessarily the most accurate conclusion to make. Clearly, both killers have absolutely no respect for the lives of their victims, and that each of them sees their victims more as objects to be taken for their own pleasure than other conscious beings that could easily be reflections of themselves, such as the rest of us tend to be able to do when we interact with others. However, after these similarities, I believe that Bundy and Dahmer diverge in their personalities and moral consciences.

Watching Bundy in his TV appearances at the time of his arrests, then his behavior at his trial (as he decided to defend himself in court), and finally, his last interview before his execution, I believe he is the quintessential psycho/sociopath. He is charming, intelligent, manipulative, arrogant, attention-hoarding, and is completely without the ability to empathize or have remorse. It is likely that he does not feel that he is culpable of wrongdoing, despite the fact that he "knows" right from wrong - he just doesn't see anything wrong with himself. Even though he appears to take responsibility for his acts and appears to repent in his last interview, I believe that it is still his manipulative, psychopathic personality reigning through in an attempt to somehow attract sympathy from the public in his death. I don't believe him at all. His words say one thing (remorse, etc) while the rest of his face and body say something different (indifference, self-assurance, arrogance, etc). To me, Bundy is the worst of the worst in that he is unable to take true moral inventory of himself and his actions, and thus, it is almost like he has no soul at all. I will return to this thought later.

Dahmer's interviews show a markedly different man than Ted Bundy. Dahmer does not have the same arrogance as Bundy, although his behavior in his killings would suggest that he believed himself exempt from apprehension. I am not entirely sure that's true, though, either. He may have just been so overwhelmed with his compulsion that it didn't matter to him whether or not he was caught - maybe that never really crossed his mind as something about which to be concerned. In any case, psychologists that analyzed Dahmer paint a picture of a lonely man who had no understanding or interest in real human interaction, but who did have a fascination both with death and body parts. In fact, his fascination with these inanimate or previously animate objects began to arouse him at an early age. It may be that his upbringing in the Church, which taught him that his homosexual desires were the work of the devil, caused him to believe himself to be of the evil because he had those desires, urges that might have begun at an early age. Believing his sexuality is evil, and finding that he could have complete control over that which is dead and/or inanimate - control, which he had nowhere else in his life - he somehow linked these two things together and thus, his sexual fantasies escalated to increasingly deviant behaviors. He knew, however, that these fantasies were wrong and 'evil', so to deal with having them, he drank. Apparently, he drank heavily, even as a young teenager. Eventually, however, the drinking couldn't hold back these desires, likely because he couldn't change them into healthier desires, and thus, he began his horrific murderous rampage.

It may be clear that I actually have some slight sympathy for Jeffrey Dahmer. My sympathy is in his self-hatred. He clearly believed himself to be 'evil' - he even said so in his sentencing hearing. He had believed himself to be the devil. I believe this was probably ingrained in his consciousness since he was a child when he might have begun to have some sexual fantasies about other boys and men, learning from the church that these feelings were somehow derived from the devil. I sympathize with that. Clearly, I don't sympathize with where he went with those feelings, but then again, I didn't have his upbringing, nor do I have his genetics/biology - there is likely a neurobiological component. He also doesn't come across as particularly intelligent, as opposed to Bundy. He was intelligent enough to understand dissection, but either was incapable of academic success or was unable to succeed primarily due to his alcoholism, in either case, it left him without much education or intellectuality. Lastly, he showed a genuine sort of remorse in his interviews. Despite the mostly indifferent manner in which he described his actions, he understood that he hurt people and that there was something wrong with him. He hoped that scientists could study him to find out what it is that was wrong with him. Altogether, these characteristics indicate to me that Jeffrey Dahmer was less psychopathic than Ted Bundy, despite his more societal taboo and horrifically deviant behaviors (such as cannibalism). I believe that had he had a different childhood, Jeffrey Dahmer might not have become the horrific serial killer he was. I am less confident that a different childhood could have shaped Ted Bundy differently.

Returning to the concept of a soul, I suppose I would say that Jeffrey Dahmer appeared to have some sort of tortured soul, yet Ted Bundy seemed empty of any conscience at all, which I would say is your soul. My recent "spiritual awakening" has led me to believe that there are two parts of our consciousness - one that is created by the physical body, and also dies with the physical body, and one that is eternal, a fraction of which lives this life attached to this physical body, interacting with the consciousness of this body, and hopefully becoming the primary consciousness driving the functions and behaviors of this physical body. Therefore, in the cases of psychopaths with seemingly no consciences, I believe that these people have lost the control of their eternal, "higher" consciousness  almost entirely to their body's physical consciousness, which has no necessity for others and merely acts in its own interest for its own survival and pleasure. What happens to their 'eternal consciousness' (a.k.a. soul/conscience, etc.)? Well, I suppose I believe it left at some point during their life (childhood, maybe?) - or was suppressed to such a low, hidden level that it essentially became obsolete, unable to gain any control. I am not at all certain I know. Well, in some instances, I believe they learned how to "dissociate" this consciousness as a survival mechanism during childhood, resulting in a substantial loss of it in adulthood (based on the theories behind "dissociative identity disorder").

The idea of two consciousnesses associated with the living being is not an original concept. I have read about it from several different sources now (Michael Newton's "life between lives" hypnosis research; ancients like Plato, Descartes, etc.), so I have begun to integrate it into my understanding of the universe. If everything is made of whatever consciousness is (as I describe in my "theory of everything"), then of course there is a consciousness that is created by the accumulation of parts (cells/molecules/atoms/particles) that make up the human body. This bodily-derived consciousness, thus, should not exist beyond the lifetime of the body as a whole, since when the body dies, each part (cell/molecule/atom/sometimes particles) degrades and is recycled for future use in another form (becoming part of the dirt, then maybe a flower, or a worm, etc, eaten by and synthesized into a bird, etc.), thus, causing the break-up of that consciousness into smaller parts. However, I believe that there is also another, more cohesive and higher-purpose-driven consciousness, one with greater resonance and thus, greater capacity of love, that exists as a whole for eternity. It is this consciousness that I believe each of us have inside of us that is directly derived from "the source" (a.k.a. God/the creator/the information that creates the universe/etc.) and develops through experiences of lifetimes and eventually returns to "the source" for recombination and renewal. Then it all repeats again, forever.

Well, I diverted a little in that last paragraph or two. I think it was necessary, though, in order to explain how it could be that someone (such as a psychopath) could not really have a soul/conscience. I don't know how many people out there that this truly applies to, but I do believe that we can have different amounts of conscience/soul in us, and that some of us do not have very much at all. I think it's sad and what not, but it is mostly scary and one must be able to learn how to spot it and avoid interaction with these people. Unfortunately, I don't think someone like Ted Bundy can be rehabilitated without a miracle. I'm not sure if Jeffrey Dahmer could've been rehabilitated, either, but I do feel like he might have been diverted from serial killing had he had a more overtly loving and accepting childhood. [I have good reasons for this belief, but I will have to share those in a different post...] However, I do not intend to "blame" his parents or caregivers. I think they probably did the best that they knew how at the time, but that Jeffrey was of a particular make that he needed more.

Therefore, I believe we all need to keep trying to figure out how we can love more and better, but also to love ourselves enough to avoid those who cannot love at all.

True Crime Murders

I've had a bit of an obsession with watching and reading about true crimes - specifically, murders. I prefer historical cases for my reading pleasure and more contemporary for TV watching. Either are fine if it's a movie. I cannot really explain these preferences, and I'm completely baffled by my obsession - I'm merely laying it out here.

Honest fiction truly bores me now. I have always loved the historical novel; E.L. Doctorow is my favorite author who almost exclusively writes historical fiction. I prefer less fiction, but I also want it to be interesting, entertaining, meaningful in a way that sometimes real life does not readily provide. I completely understand that the lines between truth and fiction are not always so clear nor do I need them to be. Of course, that fact is most apparent in true crime cases; eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, suspects often report a series of lies from which they, themselves, cannot always discern the truth. We tend to agree that there is a definitive, singular reality that occurred in the past through a sequence of events that we would call, The Absolute Truth, which is the goal of crime investigators to attempt to uncover. In reality, we can never truly know that Absolute Truth. In fact, in our country's court system, it is not the goal to reach that Absolute Truth - merely to convince twelve people of the guilt or innocence of somebody's responsibility in perpetrating such crime, "beyond a reasonable doubt." I am not a lawyer, but this is clearly a goal that is quite different and, honestly, much less satisfying to most people interested in history - or just any real story - but it is much more realistic for the functionality of our society. If we had to discover every detail of a story before moving on to the next one, justice would never be served. So, I understand all of this quite well.

But, of course, I still like a good story. And I generally want all the details - well, of course, the ones that make the story good. This is where fiction can easily add to a real event to bring it to life.

In any case, to come back to the main subject of the post - True Crime Murders - I wanted to write about what I've learned so far from my year long obsession (possibly longer). I will preface this as only anecdotal observations from a selection of real crimes, presented to me in a very particular fashion through the media, and thus, it is still wrought with skewed points of view and likely errors, etc. Even so, I think I've made some interesting observations.

1) All murderers are crazy. Absolutely. Who kills someone as a solution to anything? You have to be nuts. Therefore, I really don't think there should be an "insanity" defense. I think that's a given. Just because you're insane doesn't mean you shouldn't be locked up, away from society. If necessary, we could lock the particularly insane folks up in a separate jail for the insane - I mean a real jail, though. There could be three types of institutions: 1) Jail for criminals 2) Jail/mental ward for criminally insane people who have hurt others 3) Mental ward for insane people who do not hurt others.

2) Most murders are caused by someone you know - ok, this is actually a well-known fact. So is the fact that most murders are caused by someone very close to you, like a lover, spouse, significant other, or another type of family member.

To me, this is the hardest fact to comprehend...and yet, it's also easy to recognize. People have said that love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. I might agree - but more that hate arises as the lack of love and it comes from the vacuum of love being taken away - not just never there, but there then taken away. I've felt this vacuum, as I assume most of us have. It is so much more painful than just no feeling of love at all where there might potentially be some at some point. For instance, no one hates someone they've never met, never even heard of before. But they hate their ex-(boy/girl)friend. Yet, when you think about it...this is the saddest fact there ever was - to hate when you used to love.

I think one of the biggest challenges of our lives is to find out how to continue to love through the vacuum, when the love has been taken away from you - or even if it's just a perception on your own part that it has been taken away. All it needs to be is the perception because it's that feeling of the loss that causes the hate - it doesn't actually need to be a reality that there is a loss of love there, it just needs to feel that way. If we all learned how to get through this feeling without losing our own love to hate, there would be a lot less murder - in fact, it might be completely abolished, altogether.

3) Most people who commit murder are kind of stupid, yet arrogant. Thinking that you will "get away with murder" is both arrogant and generally just plain ignorant. There are only a few circumstances that could lead to you getting away with murder: a) you never, ever, ever, ever tell anyone else about it AND b) the time/place of the murder is in a very high crime region where the police department has a huge backlog of cases and they do not have enough time to process everything quickly and it's not a high-profile case (this scenario might only extend the time until getting caught, though), or it's just plainly an incompetent investigation or trial/case OR c) you didn't touch anything or leave any trace of your presence, nobody saw you, you didn't hire anyone to do it, there is absolutely no trace of whatever killed said person and it looked like an accident or death by natural causes AND d) you never do it again.

I'm not trying to tell anyone how to kill someone and get away with it, but I think those are the criteria and I think the likelihood of fulfilling all of them ('a+b' or 'a+c+d') is probably the same likelihood/percentage of murderers who get away with murder - as in, approaching 0%, but not 0%. 'b' is totally chance, so one cannot really rely on that. Thus, a murderer would really have to do 'a+c+d' if they wanted to truly guarantee that they get away with it, and that is nearly impossible.

However, there was one story that I watched that satisfied 'c' (the hardest part to satisfy). The problem, of course, was that he bragged about how he would kill someone (negating 'a'), and he was one of a handful of possible suspects, so the investigators looked to see if he did what he said he would do (poison the person with this very particular substance that is lethal, yet only stays in the body for a very short period of time, with a half-life of like 30min or something) and they found it in the victim's body (just in the-nick-of-time). He was thus convicted. It was likely, also, that his previous lover or spouse (I cannot remember) was also killed in the same manner, but it had not been ruled as a homicide (negating 'd'). Therefore, he had satisfied 'c', but not 'a' or 'd', thus causing his demise. In any case, the guy was clearly too arrogant to 'get away with murder'. You cannot brag. Ever. And...if you get away with it once, you cannot do it again.

Of course, we rarely hear of the cases where people 'get away with murder'. The ones we hear of or know of are the ones where 'b' was satisfied, usually due to an incompetent investigation or trial/case. And those are still conjectures on the part of the public. Such as O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony...those are the only two I know of at the moment. Historically, of course, murderers got away with it a lot more often, due to the fact that the investigative tools were not nearly as good as they are now. Now we have DNA and methods of extracting very, very tiny amounts of DNA and testing it. We also have huge DNA databases to compare these samples against. There are other tools that we have that have improved, as well, but DNA has been the most compelling, by far.

It's funny to me, though, that it's usually the murderer, themselves, that gives themself away. It's often just their mouth - talking, bragging, writing. One lady was so dumb - so dumb - that she mispronounced anti-freeze as "anti-free", which she used to poison her husband. She typed a suicide note as if it was from him, in which is "anti-free" was also written. When the investigators took her in to the station to interview her, she had a slip of the tongue when they asked which glass she poured his drink into and she said, "well, when I poured the anti-free -" and then caught herself and got all angry and flustered. That's when they knew it was her. Dumbass. I mean, the whole thing is stupid, but the shear stupidity of this woman, and yet she must have thought she could get away with murder... really?!

Obviously, it appears to be a lot of work to try to "get away with murder". It seems to me that it would be much easier just to 'let go' and 'move on' with your life. Get a divorce and pay your alimony and/or child support if it comes to that. It's much easier to do that than live the rest of your life in jail or be on death row. However, murderers are short-sighted, stupid and arrogant. And crazy for thinking that murder was a solution to anything.

I mean, sometimes I'm arrogant - and I probably have a lot better reason to believe so than most of these murderers I've heard about - but I would never think I could get away with murder. Luckily, I've never had the desire to commit murder.

I Am Not the Reincarnation of Jesus Christ

Just thought I'd reiterate this fact.

It was a nice thought, for a moment, that maybe I could be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, but to be honest...it's even nicer to be my own self. I am the reincarnation of me.