Meditation for December 3rd
The Duel
In the olden days, men settled scores with duels. They would shoot each other, and whoever won the duel won the argument.
Nowadays, we pretend to be men, it’s because of stupid made-up shit like laws and etiquette, and maybe a little bit of ethics, we deal with our dissatisfaction with others on the internet. There isn’t a clear winner in written discourse, though, and one can walk around believing they have won the comment section fight, but not knowing that the other side is also walking around boasting the same thing. There is no satisfaction.
What is the ethical dilemma with ending a person’s life? At the end of every person’s life, if they don’t forget, they die. That is going to be the outcome anyway. So, why, as a society, do we feel like life is so sacred? If it were holy, we would stay alive in this form forever. Only the lonely atheist who believes that this is all a cosmic mistake will have an actual nothing after we die, while all the believers are heading to an afterlife. If we are immortal after we die, then why are we trying to preserve something so temporary as our physical forms? Isn’t the goal to get to the afterlife party? What a good story for why you are early rather than losing a duel. This is screaming Valhalla while getting shot over an argument about the gold standard.
A lot of our society condemns killing someone in the event they break the law in a really disgusting, awful way, but if John Smith says something about my mom, I can’t drive a sword through his heart. Remember, capital punishment is contingent on there being a judgment in the afterlife, and we are just sending them to that judgment early, so St. Peter or whatever pulls the lever to hell. If there is no afterlife, then putting someone in the electric chair is just continuing the punishment on the victims’ families and ending any pain for the aggressor.
And while shalt not kill is in the top 10 commandments, we belong to a nation consistently at war. Why can our country duel, but we as individuals can’t? We got into duels with countries for kicking out their European colonizers and using a government and economic system we disagreed with, and I can’t shoot a guy for calling my dog ugly? Make it make sense. When mankind was young and was closer to the earth, the Gods were more than happy to have their worshippers strike down and erase an entire population of those who worship another God. We were built for two things: reproducing and killing those that are a threat to our survival. Duels are a continuation of that long-tried tradition, and if you read the news, you would know it is still very much alive. So it isn’t just a man-versus-man duel; it is also a battle of the gods.
Merely winning at fist to fist, which is a marvelous effort, but it doesn’t precisely capture the satisfaction you wanted when you put your dukes up. Death is the only way. You might have sent your foe to the hospital, but they can still curse you and slander your good name. A dead man can’t curse. We can’t settle our differences by punching people out, yet there is a billion-plus dollar fighting league? Why can’t I get in the ring with someone I disagree with, and for money, people can see if I’m right or not? Some say that the young are weak and demasculated, but it was their parents and grandparents who turned us into babies by making dueling to death illegal. They actually made a good old-fashioned fist fight unlawful. The young isn’t soft; it is just prohibited from being awesome now. You can spend years in prison for punching someone, no matter how much they may have deserved it, yet we love our President Andrew Jackson dueling. We are emasculated because we have been taught not to kill. Let us walk 10 paces and shoot like our genetics demand!
Now that technology takes care of all our needs, we don’t find as many threats to our survival, but plenty of threats to our ego, our survivalists ‘ new stand-in. Now that our lives aren’t on the line every day, our ego has taken the mantle of fear. Our new Gods, our egos, demand we erase this threat to our way of life off the face of the earth and reap the rewards of that person no longer existing. We try to do this by arguing online or just holing up in our homes watching streaming. No one can hurt us if we don’t come out of our den!
We live too long as it is, and our young live as if there is nothing to worry about for 60 to 80 years. This is the very reason the young are so pitiful and entitled. Only those who actually fear death have a real grasp on life. The Duel would bring back that fear of death to those who are now comfortable. The kids aren’t even drinking or drugging like previous generations, so they have no idea about death sitting on their shoulders.
It would also keep the strong alive to breed and make stronger, smarter babies. The weak would either cower away from duels or die. No one would want to breed with a coward, so we would stop having babies with so many god damned allergies!
Our tribal ways have manifested themselves on the internet. Our borders are the comment section on local news sites and grandma’s Facebook posts. You might have won the argument, but the chances are high that the other person wasn’t convinced and changed their entire way of thinking because of your bright wit. No, only death can really change anything, really.
I know that some people find guns to be an abhorrent tool, so daggers, sabers, maces, epee, or a foil can also be used. I find hatchets to be a delightful dueling weapon. I believe guns to be a coward’s weapon, but if that is what my foe wishes, I will oblige.
I mean, is murder so wrong?
Prayer
If you aren’t going to smite my enemies,
Allow me the satisfaction of smiting them for you.
Make me right,
Make me deadly,
And make the other person dead.
For only the living can be right.
Bring back the gentleman,
Who walks with a sword and a gun,
So that anyone who besmirches his reputation,
Can be stabbed or shot.
Or both, if done well.
Amen.
Craft
Buy gloves. That way, when someone looks at you sideways, you can drop them at the person’s feet, and you yell, “I demand satisfaction, good sir!” and if he picks the gloves up, you challenge, “Guns or sabres?” Duel. The winner goes to jail, the loser dies. Seems fair.
Goal
We have found life to be too sacred. It’s time to lose the comfort of life and start living by the little hairs on our chins.