made mischievous

(Locked inside to face your fears...)

Looking back in life there are times we are proud of, times we recall with regret, and then there are those that lie somewhere in between. Those moments when we may have caused another pain or suffering and yet somehow we believe it was for the best. Maybe because another found joy in our suffering, vice versa, and you both learned from it. Or, we recognize some cathartic component of playful humiliation. Pushing buttons, so to speak. Becoming so engulfed in emotion that it takes extraordinary effort to see the big picture, to rescue oneself from the sinking ship rocked by raging seas. Great moments you could say, for when else do we have the opportunity to experience such parts of ourselves, and to see what external objects - people, words, actions - are capable of creating such a storm. (Please forgive my personal pronoun syntax - if you do not identify with anything I am saying, simply replace 'we' / 'our' with 'I' / 'my', and I'll take all the blame.)

So what on earth am I talking about? Well, I'll share a couple of stories. First I reach back to a very early childhood memory in my dad's white pick-up truck. The 1991 Dodge Dakota has a fancy swiveling mini-joystick that controls which speakers the radio deck sound comes from. So driving down the road, I would occasionally push the thing back and forth and in circles for a radical swirling auditory experience of shifting surround sound encircling the listener from a new angle every second. Fun for me, probably really annoying for everyone else.

But the real fun began while I sat alone in the car for 10-20 minutes in whatever strip-mall parking lot while Dad was running a quick errand. What could I do to get at him and have an indecorous adventure along the way? By the time he returned to the drivers seat, I would have typically jammed a few cassette tapes under-neath the gas or brake pedal, or both. Me, tame and innocent, twiddling my thumbs and biting my lip while he fumbled to get the car going. He must have gotten used to the trick eventually, but somehow he always seemed surprised as he bowed to free the pedal's passage or as we avoided parking lot accidents by a hair.

Tame, you may be saying, tame. Well this wasn't my last time jamming something between opposing pieces to incite drama. Several years later, I had the privilege of joining one of my best friends and his family on their yearly vacation out west. This friend, who I'll call Carl for confidentiality's sake, had always had a certain phobia. Carl would never use public restrooms, at least to go number 2. So whenever I went to his house for a play date after school, he would be shaking his leg, jittery and antsy as his mother opened the door to their house for him to rush in and make the movement he had been holding in all day.

Well, at the site where we were all camping that summer, there was an outhouse. A well kept concrete and tile tidy bathroom mind you. Each day passed and it went unused by Carl. Eventually something had to give. Maybe three or four days into our stay at the site either Carl overcame his fear, or something inside Carl overcame him, but I saw Carl accept his fate and enter the public restroom.

My moment had come. With the door locked and Carl completely clueless, taking care of business inside, I began to jam sticks between the outward opening door and the wall behind it, and consequently locked him in! Several long minutes went by before Carl's time to exit had come, and when it did... a volcanic eruption shook the place. At first while trying to open the door, Carl must have thought that he had just not unlocked it properly, another try, and another, no immediate reaction.

In time, his confusion turned to rage, and my chuckles to shivers of fear. What had I done? Had my playful trick crossed the line? I had not realized the depth of the button I was pushing and was now honestly frightened for my life as profane cries of rage bellowed from within those walls, threatening shouts of tyrant agony and revenge.

Normally I am a faster runner than Carl, but something told me that the adrenaline pumping in his veins would catch and rips me to shreds if I wasn't careful. So I mounted a mountain bike and one by one, removed the sticks - kicking away the last one as I sprinted away in high gear, feeling the heat of raging flames chasing behind me.

That fire took days to quell, but luckily no real physical injury was incurred, only emotional scars for us both. Scars, or mirrors? I might ask. Maybe a guilt dodging selfish question or maybe a probe into those parts of the self that need examination - for both of us.

Another dramatic time that comes to mind is cutting jalapenos for dad's mean chili and then going to the bathroom and giving pete a shake to complete. Oh the cries of pain no cold water could sooth. Torturing oneself or another, we have to face the consequences of what we have done and take a firm handshake with reality.

My dad used to pitch baseballs at me to practice batting. In the back of is pickup he kept a bag with dozens of balls, so he could throw one after another without interruption. Every once in while, he would peg one right at me and if I didn't dodge, I would get pelted right in the ribs. I soon realized that the baseballs he was throwing at me were not actually hard like the others. Those that hit me were soft and cushy, intended to scare me half whited, but to be forgiving on contact.

So the compassion in pelting. How to dodge a hardball in a real game. To recognize the place hit in the storm of engaged buttons, so that when the pushers come again, we can recognize that the reverberation within comes from exactly there - within. Nothing outside ourselves can cause us pain. Only in our reactions to excited, tickled patterns already deep within us do we generate misery for ourselves.

Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe these snippets I have shared are ways of merely calling attention to the self, inflating the ego, displaying dominance. I think at the end of the day it comes down to intentions. One's volition, will at the moment of action. So admittedly, the righteousness of locking my friend to face his worse fears is a belated intention overshadowed at the time by a mischievous campaign, and one whose moral integrity pales in comparison to the compassion of pegging your son with baseballs.