But how good are we really??

[Rev. Rye]

Well, that wound up being close to my assessment. I came of age in an era where school shootings were becoming more and more common and people were afraid of misfits who could potentially kill them. And then they decided the best thing to do is isolate them further, in addition to the standard "kill yourself" or "suck my dick", there was a strong tendency to claim I was ready to shoot the school up. Didn't convince them to go to let up. Eventually, by the time I graduated, I wound up being convinced I was just a ticking time bomb ready to blow at the slightest excuse.

To cope with the straggling bullies (nonexistent by Senior year), I wound up using what Nixon called the "Complete Madman" theory to scare them away, heavily implying that I could potentially do things rarely seen outside of the most outlandish serial killer movies to those who crossed me. (It work, although I suppose the fact that some people actually respected my intellect as well helped; carrot and stick in action.) By my senior year of High school, I wound up saying "Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk," every time class ended. I took until I was well into my twenties to actually take driver's ed because I was convinced I could potentially... well, you've heard of what happened in Nice and Charlottesville, right? Sometimes, they'd play "Iron Man" on the speakers during lunch, and I'd sing the lyrics in the first person. "Have I lost my mind? Can I see or am I blind? Can I walk at all Or if I moves will he fall?" up to and including the vengeance verses. And yet, online, I wound up actually being a lot more courteous than in real life, unlike the vast majority of cases.

At Columbia, I had a teacher who hated me, and I wound up hating her. I wound up applying the Complete Madman theory to her. I was briefly suspended and I wound up starting therapy. I told my therapist about my fears, and she asked me one question: did I ever act on those fears? No, I said. I never initiated the complete madman theory with people who weren't antagonising me (well, except for giving it a Sacha Baron Cohen twist with a teacher who turned out to be an ephebophile, not that I knew at the time). The closest I ever came to physical violence included a fight that happened after I bumped into another student while in a funk that the Best Buy gift card I won turned out to only be for $10 (stopped before it came to blows), and lifting up a chair during lunch.

And with all this in mind, I found myself thinking, was I really a ticking time bomb? Was I really a good person? Huh. Evidently, I was. Evidently, that teacher who read one of my stories and noted I was obsessed with Svidrigailov-type characters but was ultimately not one myself was onto something.