To be cruel: to inflict suffering unto others. Sometimes cruelty accrues a personal gain, but sometimes others' suffering is its own reward; the knowing other humans endure suffering for our sake. The knowing of others' suffering.
You keep referring to Freud inasmuch as his consideration of sadism as satisfaction of primalmost drives. You seem to ignore Freud's tendency to regard drives as inherently sexual. Such a take on sexuality at large and the human psyche is grossly reductive. Yet, I keep thinking about it. Cruelty may tie in properly with a sexual component, but how can I be sure.
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6-feb-2016
Puberty is cruelty itself. Children have no moral compass and therefore develop an astonishing capacity for cruelty. Mix in the hormonal turbulence that comes along with the development of a body and the result is astonishingly violent. Most preteens tend to direct their violence towards themselves, but not all. I think 'bullies' stem from violent households. When pain is inflicted unto them, they compensate their self hatred with external brutality. This may or may not result on the release of primalmost drives.
When we reached puberty Megan learned how my love for her could be exploited. She developed an uncanny fluency in cruelty and suffering. She took it upon her to inflict pain, suffering and despair unto me. She knew I would endure whatever came from her and so I did. She hit my face and arms; sometimes scarring me, sometimes not. Once she was wiser as to leaving marks on my body, Megan switched to a more efficient abuse technique: emotional abuse. Emotions leave no bruises and carry a longer-term effect. I still have a mark from a lighter on my hip. She said she wanted to mark me forever to remind me how worthless I was. The scar eventually shifted its meaning as these things usually do.
She yelled at me and bossed me around. Initially I did her math homework and she wrote my book reports. Back then she had a way with words. When she learned cruelty I carried the weight of the two of us. I was not happy to do it but not entirely unhappy either. She would belittle, insult and abuse me. I endured her abuse gratefully because a crumb of her attention was better than her absence. Doing double the homework was just an extra expense of my energy. Love provides a sort of energy that makes me endure.
I was thirteen or so when some girl approached me at a restroom and tried to bully me. Megan yanked her by the ponytail straight into the ground, spat on her face and said something along the lines of "touch her again and I will kill you". She kicked her stomach several times, then took my hand and led me elsewhere. I was unable to comprehend the dissonance between Megan's compulsion to protect me and her abuse. It was nor an act of love but, rather a display of her grasp on me. I was grateful for becoming the target of her violence and her protection. Other girls bullied me because they found me ugly. Megan tormented me, though I still don't understand why and neither does she.
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14-ago-2019
When I received an unfavorable diagnosis, Megan drove from California to Chicago within two days. She looked pale and spent hours upon hours without eating. I asked her why she would do that. I guess she thought inflicting pain upon herself would earn her some sort of redemption. I was not angry at her, but she thought I should be.
She asked me to show her the scar on my hip. She tried to kiss it, but I didn't let her. The gesture seemed corny and unnecessary. I think I was still in shock. I was well aware of the imminent decay of my body and I sort of expected my mind to go simultaneously. I now know this is not the case. I was granted the mercy of keeping lucidity throughout this ordeal.
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17-ago-2019
I want out. My body has always been a burden, but illness makes it worse. I say out as if I could be me outside this body. Body as a prison of the soul etcetera. Soul. I would like to hope; to have a certainty that I am more than continuous decay. The 'me' that remains after death is memories or dreams or these words. And all of them become distorted over time. The concept I hold of myself shifts and distorts, is always incomplete. You could never know me as I do and I guess that is a kind of tragedy.
When I chose to become fully open to you and hold no secrets I did not feel safe or reassured. What I say about myself is never 'complete', never quite it. I can twist and break language: touching is another way of speaking, hitting, biting, hurting. You told me once how people interacting try violently to assert themselves and be-recognized by others. That kind of tragedy. We cannot communicate what we are.
Complete openness entails I hide no secrets from you. There I am: I openly share my shame, my fear, but do not communicate them. Narrating my experiences does not communicate them; it tells my reading of them, my construction of meaning because I am thwarted by language. I may touch you, but touching is not speaking. Joining lips and tongues and teeth is kissing and that is a means of communication. I panic because of my desire to conceptualize myself and remain as a concept, but I am not only that and I am not only your ever-distorting memories of me. Memory is an illness.
