"...Can you back it all up, when you talk the talk"

[wolven7]

I had dreams, last night, of new and different houses, of places with basements connected to the outdoors, curling driveways, and having to dispose of bodies, dispose of living people, who didn't understand what I was and how I worked. Getting those close to me to understand it...

Dreamed in Tom Waits, someone tried to pay me for protection/security work of a recording, from the 1920's, into the future, of Tom Waits covering someone else's song "On the Nickle." I got a five dollar bill, and that album, as payment...

A question: I n order to get things done, in this life, that reach across the world, that help shape and change it, you may have to know people. Sociopaths, murderers, mercenaries, veternary technicians, puppy wranglers, whatever. A wide range of people.

How does one become comfortable with that? How do you reconcile? And how do you keep under control?

I know. An electric-edged thing to be considering, this early in the morning...

Jus tso you know, I also dreamed in Scrabble.

*Sigh*

Comments

[raoin.livejournal.com]

i think a lot of honesty is needed. i look at what various governments have done over the years where they used or employed people they were later ashamed to know, and they lied about it, they acted like it didnt happen. i think this sullies whatever purpose or action the previous relationship may have achieved.

when someone says to me, "hey, did you hire that mercenary to kill that man who was raping those kids, who later went on to knock over three banks, and blow up a day care?"
and if in fact i did do so.
i'll be more than willing to say, "hey, you knew when you met me that i hired a mercenary one time to lay down social justice. i'm sorry to hear that he went on to be a fuck head. but yeah, absolutely i paid that man.

i dont think there is ever such a thing as being comfortable with that sort of person. i think if you feel comfortable you're probably about to die, because you're about to do or say something stupid. being uncomfortable is just a sign that you personally acknowledge on a visceral level the differences between yourself and that other person.

reconciliation is in the eye of the beholder, much like the meaning of certain sentence syntaxes and beauty. the question of whether or not the ends justify the means has a lot to do with your outstanding or intrinsic system of ethics. for instance, if you believe that being guilty by association or by proxy makes you just as guilty as the person perpetrating, then you are guilty. and if you think you will be punished for the guilt in this life or the next, you probably will be. on the other hand, if you dont believe that, then you are a bit more free to chose how you get things done and with what means you accomplish them. i think i have a certain moral flexibility when it comes to this. i can recall on several occasions being asked, "if you had a choice between sacrificing yourself to save 10,000 lives or sacrificing 10,000 lives to save yourself, what would you chose?" and i remember thinking, why does it have to be my life that specifically saves those 10,000 people? couldnt it be some other person's life? just one person, it could be any person. if it has to be me, i guess i could understand but i think the situation would have to be pretty extreme.

how do you keep that kind of thing under control. i really have no idea. when we say that someone has over-extended themselves, we me they have overreached the boundaries of what they are capable of managing. its easy to forget that while you may not be performing the actions, that those actions are as much a part of what you have to manage as anything you do with your own hands. i think rules help. a certain element is always going to fuck up around rules, and so i guess you have to chose people you know can follow directions. its hard to find people that are both creative problem solvers and capable of following the rules, to a certain extent they negate each other, but there is a balance there. knowing when its ok to break or bend a rule. but there's always a certain amount of protocol that helps keep a larger machine working.

[momentai.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking how do you keep sane when you might specifically know someone who has done "bad" things, but you had to work w/ them to get s/t "good" done? if so, then it's pretty easy. Shit happens. If I have selfish goals than I already don't care what anyone else thinks about how I achieve them or what happens to other people on my way to those goals, so I wouldn't care if I have to do business with or simply associate w/ someone who does things of a questionably legal nature.

If I am trying accomplish altruistic goals than the ends justify the means and lets get on with it. Would I feel guilty? Perhaps, but feeling guilty doesn't necessarily drive you insane or make it difficult to get on with life. I already feel guilty about many things and that's just from knowing myself. As Wyatt Earp once said, "I already have the guilty concious, might as well have the money, too." In this case, may as well save the world or a fair facsimile. Besides, just b/c I use someone who is "bad" doesn't mean I approve of them or their past actions. It simply means I couldn't find anyone who was better at what I needed done in the applicable time frame. And I could always have this person(s) killed or imprisoned or ruined later in order to protect myself or others involved.

Now, if you were simply asking how does someone cope with the possibility of knowing people who may or may not be "bad", especially if you end up associating with them in the course of achieving your personal goals and/or living your daily life, whether knowingly or not? Then again, shit happens. Why would I feel guilty for coming into contact or association with someone of an unsavory nature when I never knew they were unsavory?