Anti-Torture Act of 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about torture lately. Not like the UN definition of torture, but our own personal torture. Maybe because I’ve mis-used the word more frequently than usual or maybe I just love the way the word “torturous” rolls off my tongue. Sort of like vomititious. I actually LOVE that word because it’s so expressive, effective and descriptive and it sounds like what it is. That doesn’t happen too often. AND you can really put your whole face into the word. Anyway, I believe that most torture is self-imposed. Some people love to torture themselves. Others succumb to it. Recent observations of my own or other’s torture include agonizing over the perfect wording in an email, swearing you’ll never say hello to someone in the hall again after you’ve greeted them in passing dozens of times with NO response, the analyzing and over analyzing of something someone has said to you, long hours of overtime where your body is very angry at your for keeping it working at a desk for so long, the weight of expectation of something etc. Torture comes from the word that originally meant an "act of twisting" it’s the English derivative of the latin word tortura. So maybe we are actually twisting things so that we see ourselves as a victim and that is why it becomes so unbearable. If we can just remove that ego from the situation maybe we don’t have to be tortured. If we remember that we are free to think anything we want, react anyway we want, respond any way we want and that what other people do probably has nothing to do you personally, we can set ourselves free from our self-imposed torture. So I’ve decided that for the rest of month I’m not going to be victimitious.