On January 11, 2016, I began a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day, called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to hold myself accountable. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for August 31st
The Spirituality of Torture
For legal reasons, it is sometimes referred to as enhanced interrogation, but let’s be honest, it is the torture of a human being. Information may or may not be extracted. Torture gets a bum rap mainly because of how much pain and humiliation it makes someone go through. It is as old as murder.
I believe that torture is an excellent replacement for capital punishment.
The United States is the only Western country that still uses capital punishment, and only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan (see any patterns here) use it more. Most of the countries that use it are either theocracies or strict dictatorships. For the religious countries, and the United States falls under that category, capital punishment is to place the offender under the judgment of God.
Almost like suicide, where we play God on ourselves and find no forgiveness, the death penalty seems like the state is playing God on others. Perhaps God was not yet ready to call that person to judgment.
The death penalty is expensive, completely inhumane, and doesn’t deter heinous crimes at all.
Torture, on the other hand, can be cheaper, is just as humane if not more humane because of leaving the person alive, and will deter crime.
Torture can be more than just waterboarding and shocking someone’s genitals. It can be a piece of art. It can break the boundaries of our very puritan imaginations to find a way to make a criminal wish they were never born to break the law.
Imagine three months of torture rather than three months of jail for Brock Turner.
Death is absolute. Even in the most boring religious terms, the dead are rewarded somewhat by escaping the horrors of their life. If one is killing without remorse, then death is probably a welcoming place. They are dead, and the families of the victims must live on while the dead are nothing but a horrible memory.
Torture will let the loved ones know that the offender is going to get it worse.
So this fall, let’s get together and legalize torture and do away with old religious nonsense that is capital punishment. Are we the United States of America, or are we one of the countries we bomb with drones?
Prayer
Ares,
Before this soul escapes this body,
Let it know pain,
Like it inflicted on another living soul,
So that we do the judging,
And not taking the chance on maybe you gods judging,
Because if you don’t,
Or even exist,
Then death is the escape,
From punishment,
So let me stick bamboo shoots under this fucker’s fingernails.
Amen.
Craft
Torture doesn’t have to be physical; sometimes, a little psychological torture will give a person enough discomfort to worry and not feel comfortable in their own skin.
Hot & cold: Sometimes be very excited about a person and then the next time pretend you don’t even know them. Ask for their name again. Ensure they don’t become comfortable with you, regardless of whether you know them or not.
I don’t remember their name: I never remember a person’s name. Even worse, call them the wrong name confidently.
Gaslight: Don’t believe anything the person says, even if it’s evident that it’s true. Pretend you know they are lying about everything.
Gaslight 2: Drop hints that mutual friends don’t like them.
Goal
Next time you are so mad at someone that you wish they were dead, remember that death is a sweet release from this mortal prison and that torture and keeping the person alive will be a more satisfying punishment for the aggressor.