Breaking Points in Ultimate Randomness

  • May 1, 2014, 10 p.m.
  • |
  • Public

I was just sitting in bed watching episodes of Law & Order: SVU and Revolution. In both instances, there were characters who were faced with great trials. One faced death by blood loss, while dealing with hallucinations of his dead brother who's wife he had slept with and possibly is the father of one of his children. The other faced constant manipulation of her life by a sociopath who managed to test her even with his death. There are many ways you can measure a person. Good deeds, education, money, fame. But I think the most reliable measure of a person is their breaking point. How much can a person take before they finally give up. True survivors have a very high breaking point. The guy on Revolution got a serious wound in a sword fight after killing six other men in self-defense, fell into a hole where he was trapped for many days, cauterized the wound, suffered from blood loss, dehydration, and hunger. And just as he is about to kill himself with his last bullet, he finds the will to live and devises a way out of his predicament. As for the detective on SVU, she perseveres with the help of her fellow detectives, her friends, and finally puts everything that this guy has put her through to rest. Not only that, the character is a damn near 20 year veteran of the NYPD, almost all in SVU, who has seen some of the sickest shit that people can do to each other, and somehow, she has the will and sense of self to maintain some semblance of sanity. I see these people, and I wonder what is inside of myself. What is my breaking point? Sadly, I think mine has already been passed. I am broken, in more ways than one. Pretty much every way except physically. I really don't think there is a way to put me back together again. I think if I was in a situation where there were only a few options, like survive or die, maybe I could figure it out. But survival in the modern age in this society? I don't think I have it in me. Of course, like I said, physically I remain in tact and that won't change. But the other things a person needs to survive: self-confidence, ambition, determination, perserverance, and the like, they just aren't there anymore, if they were at all. I reach down inside to find the will to move forward and now it isn't there. It used to be. I can remember whole day shifts years ago where I kept reaching down and pulling out just a little more to get through my day. But it is a finite resource. I believe it can be renewed, depending on what each person values and holds dear in life. Those things that bring them love and joy and peace can renew them. But I just don't have any of that anymore. Kind words from loved ones don't do it, little victories cannot overcome the great defeats, and just waking up every day doesn't make me feel blessed. It makes me feel cursed, like something knows and enjoys the pain and misery I feel and maintains me physically so I can do it all again. I mean, I cannot remember the last time I made a good decision regarding anything. You can say going to therapy, but that is more of a tool. Whether that is helpful or is just keeping me sane enough so that some being can enjoy my misery each day, I don't know. The way I feel and with as little hope as I have for the future, I am inclined to guess the latter. In any case, all I know how to do anymore is get up and go to work each day and hope that maybe this is the day my luck runs out and I get robbed at gunpoint so I can rush the guy and force him to pull the trigger. I hope this is the day that someone runs a red light as I am driving and takes me out. But it never happens. And it probably never will. I'm just not that lucky.


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