NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN
“People who become artists often share strikingly similar traits with those who become criminals: abusive parents, traumatic childhood events, and marked scarcity of the brain chemical seratonin. In some cases, being good-looking cancels out the above misfortunes, but throw ugly into this already precarious mix and nine times out of ten, you get an artist or a criminal.” -The Starving Artist’s Survival Guide
It may be wrong that I take pride of some sort in that statement. Yet, wrong or not, that I do! An artist, I am. And though the desire to delve into any criminal mischief never quite took its hold, an utter fascination with a certain unsavory branch of the criminal world most definitely did. That of the serial killer. Of the “organized” classification variety, that is. A mastermind gone greatly awry.
The exploration of what compels one possessing great intelligence to bypass their conscience (what conscience, some may ask) and take that first step off the ledge of sanity to make their wicked imaginings a reality- highly engaging! In conversation, I always wonder at those who say they could never commit such acts themselves. Anyone who’s felt love to the depth it should be felt at, and in turn been hurt by it, has learned that there’s a thin line between love and hate, and were that hate to be overindulged and fixated upon, the rage to build and ensue contains a capacity to enable nearly anyone to potentially falter (understatement) and kill another. Such people may be the most scary and dangerous of all, as they’ve not yet experienced the full recesses of their own mind to know the lows to which it can go and how to then reign it back in once there.
So, fascination, criminal, mastermind: Dexter! In catching up on viewing Season III, that show all about a forensic blood spatter analyst who moonlights as a vigilante serial killer, several quotes struck me, giving voice to thoughts I think I’ve thunk in times past.
“My life has always felt like an unanswered question. A string of days and nights waiting for something to happen, but I didn’t know what.”
And still, I wait. Life doesn’t currently offer up anything concrete in the way of the definitive answers I’m continually seeking. That “something”. A purpose I do possess, but it needs further defining, a honing and fleshing out in setting a course to follow filled with the substance required to carry me on through to what I’m meant for. In likening life to a photograph, it’s begun to feel as if the often blurred elements of the background are at last working their way into place to provide a solid basis for which the foreground image- the crisp, clear, vibrant, technicolor subject still to come- may rest on.
“A dinner party.
Washing dishes.
It seems so mundane.
But it’s oddly … soothing.
Maybe this is what belonging feels like.”
That one actually made me cry. Thank you dear and lovely screenwriters for such a relatable bundling of composed wordage! Truly, the times I’m among a handful or more of others, whether loved ones, liked, or just-met perfectly good strangers, whenever we find ourselves teamed in preparation and consumption of a meal, a rhythm sets in to which all move and belong by simply sharing in the tasks of the everyday-ordinary. It’s mighty fine to feel on the ins and not the outs, from time to time.
“We see two things in people: What we wanna see and what they wanna show us.”
What a ponderous declaration! It’s a wonder that the existence of love could ever stand a chance at being genuine in light of such words, as it would seem sure to be rooted in the mere imaginings of another, a skewed perception, a desired fabrication. That’s an entirely separate post, I’m thinking, not easily compacted into a sentence or two, nor even a tangent. Really, just a dismal theology for batting around before dismissal, playing into the facets of love being blind. As for what others may wanna show us, if only more would show … more. I do tire of those not apt to show much of anything, closed off (nearly down!), quick to take, but slow to give. I’ve had quite enough of those, and that’s all I have to say about that.
In further and final Dexter-doing, a few photos of a dining room designed to conceptually embody the elements that comprise the show. The best bits- the blood-filled vials acting as centerpieces down the table, the plastic covered floor and the blood-splattered dining chairs. Purveying of mayhem!