Fighting your Demons

 **This seemed timely, so I am reposting this.**

A lot of people have said insightful things about fighting demons.  Here are the top 3 in random order.

1.   When you fight monsters, you have to be careful not to become a monster yourself.
Because every time you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.   This is a bastardized version of a quote from Fredrick Nietzche, a German philosopher from 1800's. The actual quote was - Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.   Fredrick was trying to say that if you had to become a demon to slay a demon there was no net gain.  There is no extra credit for moral high ground, best intentions, or heroic actions.  If fighting your demon adds one to the total number you have made the situation worse, not better.  Looking into the abyss is the mirror we all look into every day in a figurative sense.  If you look hard enough you will see what you became to fight your demons.  The best case is that you don't look or sound like the asshole that you have been fighting with.  Sometimes only  time and distance allow you to see this and it is harder to see in the heat of battle.  (Fredrick, after his meteoric rise to fame, became clinically insane at an early age and lived under the care of his mother until he died)

2.   But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.—Luke 6:27-31.   Jesus is the OG (original guy) who tries to get us all to understand the simple principle that what you do will come back to you and perpetuate itself.  It is more than love and hate, it is everything in between.  People with the strength and courage to fight their demons have either intentionally or unintentionally helped other people find their courage and strength.   These passages get misinterpreted all the time.  He just wanted you to take time to pick what you wanted to come back to you.  The person who has already has hit you has picked what will return to him.  Jesus was no slouch at busting a couple heads when he needed.  I don't think we ever were supposed to be so passive as to not bust a head when circumstances dictated.  It just should not be the default and you should not bust the same pumpkin twice.

3. You can never win a fight with a retard.  If you lose, you lose to a retard.  If you win, you have beaten up a retard.  (The word Retarded comes from the Latin retardare, "to make slow, delay, keep back, or hinder.  This is not intended to be a derogatory term for a person who suffers any recognized mental deficiency of handicap.)  The awful truth is that a lot of the demons we wrestle with are not complex, super intelligent, gifted, insightful beings.  They are people who have been brought into our lives by chance, circumstance, or when you just step in that random pile of shit.  These tend to be people who need attention and consider imitation the sincerest form of flattery.  They get our attention because they say and do things that offend us at a primary level.  They are not nice, don't play fair, and seem to go out of their way to make minor disagreements into epic battles.  When you call them out, frequently you find people in tough, sad, places in their lives.   There is never much satisfaction in a broken person.