Raging Walter Mitty (a modest impulse)

When I’m walking down a well-lit, semi-populated street, striding purposefully and as unthreateningly as one can without crawling, and someone I pass eyes me warily and gives me an unnecessarily wide berth, sometimes I feel like going up to that person and thrusting my elbow straight into his face. You know, a back-sweeping blow, with absolute and inexplicable malice, trying to break the nose or something.

I never do it, of course, continuing to walk purposefully and giving no outward indication of the impulse. I may even feel somewhat guilty about the unwarranted animosity as I continue on my way before the thought completely passes and my mind moves on to contemplate something that’s probably equally unfit for admitting to people on a website.

I suppose the motivation, on some unconscious, testosterone-inspired level, stems from the sense that this person’s paranoia is practically begging for something threatening to occur; animals can smell fear and apparently so can I. The world has so conditioned my unwitting pseudo-prey to operate as though everything is out to get him that it’s almost as though doing nothing is letting him down. I mean, if the Bush administration’s insistence that “America is safer” has not put him at ease, I am sure that making eye contact and smiling innocently wouldn’t have much effect on his outlook. However, I bet justifying his distrust of strangers would, on some level, provide a sort of satisfaction; it wasn’t all for nothing that he comported himself as he did.

Undoubtedly the irritation I feel also springs from the impression that, despite all of my subtle efforts to seem at least not untrustworthy, I have been lumped in with those scoundrels who flaunt their machismo in their gait, presumably wishing to instill such fear. I suppose I could revel in such glowing success in the absence of any effort whatsoever, but really, as this essay reveals, I’m plenty capable of being off-putting when you get to know me; I don’t need the uninformed paranoia of strangers helping me there.

The irony (let’s overuse that term), of course, comes from the fact I’ve never been in a real fistfight my entire life, and anyone who has even so much as seen an episode of a sitcom where the protagonist attends a beginning self-defense class could almost certainly take me down without wrinkling his clothes. Perhaps that sub-conscious realization on my part, when combined with the perception of being threatening, elicits in me a reaction that’s akin to one dog sensing submission in another. (Hmm. On second thought, anyone who knows dogs knows what one dog tries to do to another dog in that scenario, and that would not only get me arrested but force me to hire Michael Jackson’s lawyers, so please try to appreciate the metaphor without dwelling on the practical application thereof.)

I am civilized enough that it never manifests in action; I am intelligent enough to grasp that unlike the thugs who have forethought and get away with their violence, I would be not only be arrested but, not being a celebrity, would get the maximum sentence; I am considerate enough that I wouldn’t do that just on principle; I am lazy enough that it’s simply too much trouble to bother; I am pusillanimous enough to worry the person has seen that sitcom episode.


“Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant. …Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.”
– Rollo May (identified by the editor of The Great Thoughts as an “existential therapist”), 1972


"Elbow?" I know enough about my fighting prowess not to attempt to use a fist, and that the elbow can both deliver and withstand more punishment.

"Him?" Go with it. Admittedly, more of the incidents of this scenario involve women I pass, but I’m not so stupid as to be oblivious about the fact the pronoun “her” would give the whole thing a connotation I don’t intend, and would pretty much destroy what little humor there might be.


~~~
Unrelated quote:
“I’ve only this morning learned of blogs, and my first reaction was, ‘Why would anyone care?’”
– Rosario Dawson, in a public diary feature for Black Book magazine, Feb/Mar 2005 issue.