The hunting thing...

There's a difference between killing and torturing. Like I said to the dog... if you're not going to kill it, leave it alone.

My brain was concentrating on this topic before I went to sleep last night, and something occured to me. I tried to think of instances in my own life that applied, and realized that I'm definitely a horror buff. I love horror novels, and I've seen all the "Faces of Death" and Traces of Death" type movies. I watch surgery shows on the Discovery channel. Is it my reaction to the suffering that I'm enjoying? I'll be the first to admit that I'm a total masochist... in the sense that I seem to love inflicting pain on myself. I think that maybe that's what it is for me. I'm always looking for something more shocking. I feel desensitized on many levels. I just attempt to get myself to FEEL something. I want to walk the line... the one that is between the feelings of revulsion and attraction.

SouthPark just had an episode on the other day where Kenny was doing all sorts of shocking things for money. The kids found it amazing that people would pay to see Kenny do things like eat his own vomit and got to the point of a scheduled Pay Per View where Kenny was to crawl into the bus driver lady's uterus for 6 hours.

I'm not too sure how this applies to people who enjoy pulling the wings off of butterflies, or who love watching little furry creatures suffer. I couldn't watch the part where they were showing the rabbits in "Faces of Death II". Funny how a tortured bunny bothers me more than a guy getting his head blown off. I guess bunnies are just cuter.

I wonder about whether or not the people who see things suffering every day and enjoy watching it actually are bothered by it. No matter what I watch on tv, I still feel horrible when what I'm watching involves a person (or other creature) suffering. Seeing a man with 90% of his body burned, yet still alive will get my attention. I want to see it. I want to feel the shock, and see something that I've not seen before. Perhaps I'm just trying to further desensitize myself. Perhaps I'm in training. Maybe there's a part of me that wants to prepare myself for any situation in life... so that I can act intelligently if that situation arises. Whatever the reason I want to see it though, there is still a part of me inside that is crying for the guy... a part that can imagine the suffering and that fears that sort of suffering... a part that realizes that there is a person hurting... not just an image on my tv.

It's a lot easier for me to understand those who are fascinated by what they come across than those who actually find joy in causing others to suffer. I just don't think that I'll ever understand people who can cause innocent others to hurt. I can understand people who hunt, and farmers, and even the guy who goes off the edge and kills the dog who bit his baby... but never the ones who make a living doing research and pour various soaps into the eyes of rabbits, never the child abusers wielding hot irons and two by fours, and never the ones who don't at least feel a pang of terror while watching a fish out of water.