The other night, while reflecting on the past, I was reminded of my role as the hatchet man lurking in the shadows of the community. That’s a thought that requires some explanation. I don’t know that I can pinpoint when it started or how, but I do have an understanding of why it came about.

It is open to interpretation whether my compulsion to make decisions that are unprofitable but morally satisfying is a result of moral fibre or self hatred combined with an inferiority complex.

It’s also possible that I’m just addicted to the self satisfaction of taking the moral high ground, or at least playing at being a hero.

The fact that I’ve developed the assumption of that the fact that I’m an outcast and unwanted; and yet still around, means I’m basically untouchable. Nothing anyone can say about me can force me further from the people who know me. They’ve accepted my flaws and my baggage, for their own reasons. I don’t see that changing without activity on my part. Unless I change what I am, the bargain remains, and so I remain.

That frees me up to be honest, to say the words that others might decide to swallow. I can be bluntly honest, since it can’t damage my reputation.

And these elements key off each other, and other elements of my personality. I observe things that I could probably ignore, and I find it hard to keep myself from getting involved. From trying to make things better, because a part of me remembers the way things were for me, and how making things better would have meant so much, of when it did mean something to me.

In any case, I get told things or I see things, and the pieces get put together. I build a little diorama and flesh it out. The players all get dressed up in the appropriate hats.

And then I have a obligation, so I go try to do the right thing, look the fool, feel like the hero, and maybe accomplish something in the process.  Though usually all that does is to create enough doubt that the conscience of the person actually resolves the damn issue.

Resolution is resolution, and results is results, so people tell you more stories and you try again. The process is cyclical and ephemeral, but it works well enough that people who want to believe in it will keep believing in it. That’s the way all faiths function.

Then again, sometimes I actually accomplish things through sheer blunt force; bashing my skull into the wall until I come out the other side.