The Book of Sins, Chapter 1. Passion and Violence
#1 of The Book of Sins
If I'd lived a lifetime of happiness and fortune I would have died happy. I would have existed in a state of self-acceptance, I would have found beauty and harmony in all that I knew, and respected balance and justice in all things. I would have been the shepherd, tending a flock, guiding stranger's paths and ensuring prosperous futures. I would have loved all and been loved by all. I would have been a god, transcending the needs for food, water and sex. I would have been an immortal, never having to take a breath. I would have been indestructible, uncorruptable.
But I was not, and am not. My name is Jamie, and this is my book of sins.
Chapter 1. Passion and Violence.
Wolves are simple creatures. Pack animals, we herd ourselves where ever we desire, following an alpha or guiding the beta. We live in a strict hierarchy of rules, even in such modern times. We respect strength, we respect violence and we despise restraint and cowardice. Restraint... Restraint is hesitation. It is unwilling beaurocracy in our politics, it is doubt clouding judgement, it is uncertainty and non-commital wavering... it is the blink in the staring contest with death.
My ancestors understood this as they faced each other, on all fours, fangs bared, looking for weaknesses as they stared at each other. My ancestors knew the cost of battle, the cost of competition and the necessity for strength and resilience. There was no insecurity, there was no doubt. A father of mine, many hundreds of generations ago faced a rival, and knew that as he faced a challenge he was not just facing the fangs and growls of the wolf opposite, but was instead facing a hundred thousand more years of natural selection. He was fighting the same battle his father had thought, and the same his grandfather had fought. He knew, as I do - the battle he fought was not against his rival, for the goal is never to defeat the challenger - the battle he fought was against the world.
He was not the mad-dog - he was the survivor. The mad-dog is one who sees only pain, who has experienced unspeakable evils and has lived through it, knowing only suffering, hatred and violence. The mad-dog is unbalanced, but the wolf is balanced. The mad-dog yearns for retribution, to hurt, to kill, to destroy, to overcome his target or die trying. The mad-dog jumps, but the wolf... the wolf halts.
The wolf fights the battle in his mind, watching his opponent, identifying weaknesses to exploit. He knows this one - part of his own pack. The beta trying to become the alpha. He recognises the motivation. The wolf he faces is not a mad-dog either - the wolf he faces has mirrored in his eye's the same desire - not for war, not for combat but for the rewards and wealth it brings. The wolf he faces is him, strong, alert and scanning him for weaknesses, but more importantly than all - they recognise both of their positions in the pack. It is not suicide for this wolf to challenge, and the challenger does not seek the death of the wolf.
There is combat, there is blood, there is violence and passion. Snow, earth, forest, water, rock, wood, blood, flesh, howls.
My ancestors lamented the sin of living, the life which granted them desires, which drove them to hurt, but they accepted their lives. They were not afraid to change the world - not afraid to change everything they were and all that was. To them, murder was not the sin, but ambition. It was irresistible - the idea of power over the pack, the idea of mating rights, the idea of territory and security. If there was to be death, so be it. It was a regrettable consequence of struggle, a necessary end to a calling which had driven their ancestors before them, and would drive their children too.
Only now can we break free from this instinct, but still I am a pack animal, still I am subject to the law of alpha and beta, still natural selection calls to me. The world, however, is not kind. The rules have changed, and the means with which to control it. We no longer fight with teeth and claw, but with bank note and cheque book. We don suits which make us look like stuffed animals, all bloated and angular at the wrong points. We create new sins to make life seem less detached - we smoke, we inject ourselves with poisons and we compete in meaningless virtual arenas. Our crimes have changed, and so have our punishments. Our morality has changed, and with it the consequences of our actions. Murder came with risk to my ancestors - the loss of an eye or losing a tooth could be as fatal as a blow to the heart. Whilst it is not fitting, I can find no word better than "honour" to describe the violence of my ancestors - there was honour, of a sort. A respect to the victor, a welcoming of stability.
Murder, for example, is now punished by imprisonment. One cannot simply kill and take a superior's position, nor strike down an inferior to assert authority. We supress our violence because it's simply too easy - we perfected the art of murder by developing weapons and poisons. We bought members of stronger packs when there was peace to influence our own. We traded in lives of prey and of ourselves. My ancestors learned a new sin - the sin of murder. This was true murder, done not out of accident or necessity, but for other benefits. We learned to stand on two feet to free our paws for killing tools, and traded our bodies and lives in service for money and the right to eat under our own protection. We developed systems of skills and professions until there was no longer any semblance of past hierarchies. Any who could be useful to the machine of civilisation were embraced, and any who disrupted were destroyed - and no longer would the strongest champion rule, but instead the smartest.
The wolf who wore the crown in the cradle of civilisation was not he who bested his challenger in a battle of wits or claws - no... the father of mine who wore that crown had taken different steps. He had convinced other wolves to protect him, and he had convinced his challengers to challenge no longer. He had smiled as his muscles deteriorated, as our natural strength faded from our species and instead his mind grew as he thought of new ways to influence and manipulate his pack, and how to gain advantage over other packs.
But what of I? I never sought the top of the castle - I never sought to challenge that crown, either because I was born with all that desire for success driven from me by years of peaceful breeding, or perhaps, closer to the truth, was the evidence it was futile. It seemed impossible to become more than I was, and indeed I was encouraged to accept this by the abundance of food, the mediocrity and unimportance of position and the supply of females who were no longer prizes for a male, but individuals in themselves - with the right to choose their male on any criteria they saw fit.
My ancestors killed out of necessity and out of instinct. Their crime was no sin - it was part of life. My life was different - hunting no longer necessary and status no longer important. What is murder to one who knows the sin? My name is Jamie, and my first sin is taking the life of an innocent.