Wednesday 31 August 2011

Dark Passenger


Dexter Morgan can't muster any feelings for the people around him, because he is removed from the experience due to the need to keep under wraps his inner need to kill people for reasons other than self-defence. He doesn't conduct his killings unreasonably or unconscionably (he insists on proof of guilt and intent of future harm), and there's no good reason not to accept them and him, but people wouldn't understand. They get touchy about the deliberate removal of life.

My life is much better than Dexter's. My girlfriend kicks his's arse, for one. And I have a bunch of friends whose company I enjoy and with whom I can have conversations I don't feel alienated from; the events of my life are far less convoluted and the people around me are far more convincing as human beings; and I never debase myself with his brand of appalling dad-jokes. And yet, the resemblance is uncanny.

I'm not actually indifferent to my surroundings, but then neither is he. We are both blunted. More to the point, almost exactly like him, I get terrified whenever my dark secret seems like it's getting ready to surface. My secret is that I get sidetracked from the attempt to function like a person far more easily than other people, and don't see (or feel) as quite as obvious or simple the preferability of life over death. When full-blown, this was designated "clinical depression", and now once having come under control, it's an ill-defined psychological rather than psychiatric issue. Like Dexter's, this is an unfortunate condition, but it's not something that justifies condemnation. But people get touchy about the deliberate complaining over that which isn't a big deal for them.

Until he and I can say "I feel the need to kill people" and "I have serious trouble dealing with life", respectively, out loud, there is no point to having a relationship, or at least no chance for any degree of intimacy or emotional significance within it. It is very very important to be able to tell sanctimonious intellectual midgets to fuck off and die when they challenge the legitimacy of your feelings and existence, rather than try to explain and apologise your way out of their criticism. Because even the less convenient aspects of your personality are here to stay.

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