Dark Impulses

by coolhandluke 124 Replies latest members adult

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  coolhandluke

  Of course I have. The fact that this sort of suffering exists is horrifying. That's why I don't understand why you say you would enjoy hurting people. Maybe I'm reading this wrong.......

  humans are capable of such amazing acts of love, kindness, caring. on the flip side they can be completely bankrupt morally. the dichotomy is so goddamned intriguing. i think you are reading me wrong but I think blasty gets what i'm saying here. inside of all of us is the choice to do the socially acceptable thing. when someone cuts me off in traffic i want to pin their car in, pull them out of it and beat the sh*t out of them. but that isn't acceptable, nor is it right. so i take a deep breath and make an excuse for them. but GAWD DAMN if it wouldn't feel good to pull them out of their car and earn an assault and battery charge.

  you ever yell at someone in traffic? shadow self. you ever whispered obscenities under your breath about a superior? shadow self. you ever say 'i'd love to strangle that so and so? um, shadow self. im willing to bet though that you don't have any presidential assasinations or serial killings on your record though. neither do i. that don't stop me from thinkin em.
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  Octarine Prince

  I cosign coolhandluke.
  
  I, too, am studying how to "keep it real" using the Jungian archetypes, and dealing with the shadow self.
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  snowbird

  We all have dark impulses; this is what the Bible calls the carnal nature which is at enmity with God.

  We have a natural leaning toward that which is hurtful to ourselves as well as others.

  For instance, I could choke the life out of the bastard who assaulted my g'daughter and smile while doing it.

  Have I considered hurting anyone who hasn't wronged me? You bet I have. I took care of my mother who was in the early stages of dementia; she was abusive and manipulative, often faking the extent of her illness. I decided to place her in a nursing home because I was afraid I was going to beat the daylight out of her!

  My pious JW sisters pretended to be shocked at my decision, but I had reached the end of my rope. No one should judge or censure another for saying what's really on her/his mind. If we look really deep within ourselves, we'll get a glimpse of that shadow.

  It's what we do with the shadow that matters.

  Sylvia
• 

  Mary

  you ever yell at someone in traffic?

  Absolutely.

  you ever whispered obscenities under your breath about a superior?

  Hmmm.....no, I usually say it out loud.

  im willing to bet though that you don't have any presidential assasinations or serial killings on your record though. neither do i. that don't stop me from thinkin em.

  I think there's a huge difference between yelling at someone in traffic, or muttering about a superior and actually thinking about watching the world burn. I can truly say, I have never sat there and ever thought I'd enjoy watching people suffer......I'm too much of a wus...........
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  sweetstuff

  Well I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't thought about watching a specific person suffer a slow agoniziing death at my hands, however I didn't act on it, but I sure as hell thought about it. My ex husband.
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  Lady Zombie

  I studied Jung in college and I really like him, but more as a philosopher than psychologist.

  Everyone has a capacity for violence and dark impulses, under the right circumstances.
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  Mary

  OK, maybe I'm not making my thoughts very clear on here......I completely understand that there are certain people we could kill......Snowbird has an excellent example and I think it's completely understandable as to why she would want to kill the prick who molested her granddaughter. My entire family would have been hard put not to kill the drunken bastard who killed my brother in a car accident and it's probably a good thing for him that he was killed too.

  What I found disturbing CHL, is that you wrote about hurting people and watching the world suffer----and I took this to mean you've thought about smiling as people you don't even know or who have never done anything wrong to you, suffer as you watch. I think there's a big difference between wanting to see justice done to certain individuals who say, molest little kids, and wanting to see people suffer just for the hell of it.
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  coolhandluke

  snowbird - i couldn't have said it better

  sweetstuff - god who hasn't felt like that about an ex?

  prince - keep on keeping on. the more we know about the recesses of our minds i think the more successful and able to help others we become

  Mary - i had to trace back in my mind where i was and what i was thinking about the last time i thought that. i had just listened to this in depth thing about darfur. i wanted to walk into that country and set off a nuclear bomb, make my way over to the middle east and let off a few more. i wasn't thinking rationally in that moment. i didnt think about artists, children, teachers, mothers, old people... i thought about lashing out at people who choose to hurt.

  ever watch the show Dexter on Showtime? if you haven't look it up. if you've watched it once, you're probably a fan. why? i have a theory. we all wish that the shadow self had a voice louder than our 'wuss' (as you call it) voice. that we could slowly torture child molestors and rapists, men that place the bottom line of greed over the humanity of others in white collar crime, politicians who lie in our faces knowing full well that the platforms of addressing our fears and our pains that they've been elected on are nothing more than feathers tickling our ears while they prosper and we suffer... mmmmm, i'd love to hear them all scream. but there are consequences to such actions. and i'm not about to sacrifice all of the hard work i've done to be a good person, a whole person, a person capable of holding in all of his dark impulses and seeing what good i can add to my universe for a small credit advance on what karma will do to these animals.
• 

  Mary

  ever watch the show Dexter on Showtime? if you haven't look it up.

  Sorry----no, I've never seen it.....never even heard of it.

  if you've watched it once, you're probably a fan. why? i have a theory. we all wish that the shadow self had a voice louder than our 'wuss' (as you call it) voice. that we could slowly torture child molestors and rapists, men that place the bottom line of greed over the humanity of others in white collar crime, politicians who lie in our faces knowing full well that the platforms of addressing our fears and our pains that they've been elected on are nothing more than feathers tickling our ears while they prosper and we suffer... mmmmm, i'd love to hear them all scream.

  I guess that's where we differ......While I certainly think there are people who are the scum of the earth, I still would have no desire to watch them suffer. Even child molesters. Could I pull the trigger and shoot one? Probably. But as for inflicting pain on them and watch them "scream" as they slowly suffer, I just couldn't do it.
• 

  Big Tex

  Interesting thread. Actually CHL, I'm not at all surprised by what you've said about yourself. No, not that I think you would act out on these thoughts/ideas/impulses, but that you're open to accepting the darkness as part of who you are and centered enough to acknowledge it out loud. It's taken me a long, long time just to forgive myself for having those thoughts. I've never acted, but I've felt horrible for years just thinking some dark things. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to voice this out loud (at least typing it out loud) for the first time.

  And yes I do agree that nearly everyone (I wouldn't presume to speak on behalf of 6 billion people) have a dark side. Some act on that darkness, most do not. I just finished a book about the Kennedy assasination where Jack Ruby admitted that he shot Oswald because he saw Oswald smirking (the cop had just made a joke about Oswald getting shot), it angered him and he reached into his pocket where he kept a gun (because of payroll cash he was carrying) and shot in reactive anger. He later said if he was unarmed, he probably would have just tried to hit him instead.

  So there is something to be said for dark thoughts meeting dark impulses when opportunity, lack of impulse control and emotion combine to create a perfect storm.

  "You are a strange people. You are capable of the most beautiful dreams and the most hideous nightmares." -- Contact