(no subject)

I've been thinking recently about the choices we make for our lives. I blame Iain Triffitt for this, personally. He made me think. He made me wonder how is it that most people come out of acute suffering damaged but still human, and just how and why a very few emerge as monsters. I keep fretting about what sort of choices there are in lives of torment and how they are made. I fret because I want to understand, but there is no way I want to go through any of those experiences myself.

Of course, I blame Sharyn for bringing related subjects up in conversation and making me realise that I still haven't solved this particular problem. My first reaction, in fact, was one of vast relief. None of the Shoah survivors I know and have known have ever chosen the monster route - all of them have chosen to remain decent human beings. As they grow old, they pay new prices of pain for what was done to them, but each and every one of them has still chosen humanity above monsterhood.

I need to read more Primo Levi. I think maybe he understood it.