I have a confession to make. About 15 years ago I got on the wrong side of ‘common law’ and for 10 years I had a record for ‘assault occasioning bodily harm’. While not necessarily condoning my choice of behaviour at the time there is a part of me that still refuses to admit I was wrong. Basically I hit someone with a piece of wood, deliberately and very hard. He ended up with stitches in his hand and we were both lucky that someone else was there to stop me. The first blow had been to his thigh, the second to the middle of his body where his hand had caught the blow trying to defend himself and the third was going to be aimed at his head. I am physically strong, I have a violent and hot temper but this time I was cold, which is much more dangerous. I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t thinking at all. Later when I came to my senses I was afraid of myself.
Trust me, he deserved it, or something similar. He had taken advantage of women all his life and not taken responsibility for it - I was just the one who finally put a halt to his behaviour. And me, I was only harnessing all the hurt and anger that I had been holding onto for years and years, probably lifetimes - he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and foolishly hit the trigger.
It was touch and go there for a while, there was a real chance I could serve a custodial sentence. Why? Not necessarily because it was ‘pre-meditated’ and calculated but because I refused to yield. When I stood in the courtroom before the judge I looked him squarely in the eye, defiance obvious in my posture - there was no acquiescence, no guilt and no apology. My mother had tried to coach me, suggesting that I should cry a lot and ‘pretend’ to regret what I had done (she thought he deserved it too), but I just couldn’t - I didn’t regret doing it. Luckily the judge was a wise man, and kind. He understood why I had done it and respected that deep down, though he sternly informed me that I could have gone to gaol. I hadn’t been in trouble before and haven’t since.
For all of my conscious life I have lived by a personal ethical code - I am sworn to truth. It may be my truth, but one has to start somewhere. Several years ago I was able to put it into words: Y gwir yn erbyn y byd. It is Celtic or Gaelic and translates as ‘the truth against (in spite of) the world’. My insistence on living by this motto has made my life very difficult, not just in practical ways, but in emotional and psychic ways too. It nearly landed me in gaol.
This event made me finally realise just how angry I am and I have to take responsibility for that. I am angry, I was born that way, and I am only just beginning to understand the depth of that anger and the reasons behind it. I am tired of comments like, ‘well you know anger is just fear and fear is just the fear of death’. Sure, sure - and that applies to every unevolved human on the planet, but there is more to it than that and I will be unravelling my ideas in successive blogs.
image: journal drawing from my Minotaur series.
