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Be Very Careful With Your Words
Undercurrent
 November 07 2024 at 08:32 pm
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I just finished watching Lords of Chaos, the cinematic dramatization of the destruction caused by the members of the seminal Norwegian black metal band, Mayhem. It's complicated story of a young man named Øystein Aarseth who called himself Euronymous. The name "Euronymous" is a reference to "Eurynomos," a figure from Greek mythology described by the ancient geographer Pausanias as a daimon or spirit of death who resides in the Underworld. Euronymous played with dark imagery to shock and impress. He was essentially larping for the devil but what that invited into the world lead to his brutal murder. Amongst other things it attracted Kristian Vikernes, reinventing himself under the name Varg, meaning wolf. Varg began turning Euronymous's dark speech into dark actions, leading to a spate of church burnings across Norway. Eventually, in feeling he was losing face as the supposed leader of the movement, Euronymous indirectly threatened to kill Varg. But Varg was a man of action. Euronymous's last words as he was violently stabbed to death were "I just talk". "Exactly" said Varg. "You're an embarrassment. That's all you do is talk. That's why you're gonna die." About 4 weeks ago I was having a friendly chat with a human resources professional. She was in her mid 50's, extremely bright and highly accomplished. As I sipped a delicious coffee her lovely assistant had made me, sitting in her cozy office, I stared out at the mountain on that beautiful sunny afternoon. Somehow I mentioned that there was some growing tension in the world. She looked at me with a thoughtful smile, rolled her eyes and said, referring to Trump's assassin, "he only had one job to do." Two days ago I was relaxing in a sauna that was unusually busy with some older guys in their 60s and a younger French guy. I know some of them. They're reasonable, friendly people - hard-working tradesmen and the like. They were talking about Trump's election victory and within a few sentences were agreeing that he should be killed. Last night I saw the long compilation of posts on X calling for Trump's death. As someone who has been to the edge and back, my thoughts are, "you guys have absolutely no idea what you are inviting in." In the darkest period of my life, I could be consumed by white hot flashes of anger. I would think a thought about punching something and then, in a blinding rush, my fist was through a door or smashing into the granite counter-top. It felt both incredible and unsettling. One day my miserable new wife was berating me over something in the kitchen and I glanced at the carving knife on the counter. The following day I connected the obvious dots and went to see a psychologist. Lounging back in her knee-high boots, she seemed less interested than I expected but then I described having a shower and feeling the presence of a large menacing wolf on the other side of the shower curtain. She say bolt upright. "Tell me about the wolf." We might feel physically far from the epicenter of the American politics here in Australia but the Varg is never far away. Be very careful with your words.

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