Vachon Imagined

One of my favorite bands to listen to when I’m working out is Rage Against the Machine. If you’re looking to get pumped—perhaps even to taste a little of your own rage, which can be surprisingly effective when you’re trying to convince yourself to squat—I highly recommend Killing in the Name.

Before you mark me as wicked or click away, stay with me for another minute.

I promise that by the end of this, you’ll see what I mean. And if you don’t, that’s all right. Everyone comes to seeing. Sometimes it is only a matter of time. More often, it is a matter of willingness.

Most people reserve the word killing for criminals, soldiers, murderers, or acts of self-defense.

But look more closely.

Look honestly at desire.

Notice what happens when an idea captures the mind. We tell ourselves, whatever it takes. The mind narrows. Desire becomes singular. We charge through doubt. We charge through obstacles. We charge through people standing in our way.

We kill for survival.

We kill for success.

We kill for comfort.

We kill for love.

Sometimes we kill another’s spirit with a sentence spoken in anger. Sometimes we destroy a person’s character to preserve our own reputation. Sometimes we sacrifice our families on the altar of ambition. Sometimes we consume more than we need because desire whispers that enough is never enough.

The world teaches us to measure killing only by bloodshed.

Life asks us to look deeper.

Every desire costs something.

Every choice leaves something behind.

Every act of becoming requires another possibility to die.

This is not an argument against desire.

It is an invitation to consciousness.

If something must be sacrificed, let it be seen.

If something must die, let it be honored.

If we wound another, let us not pretend we have remained innocent.

Honor does not erase what has been done.

It reveals it.

And once we can see clearly, reverence becomes possible.

This is the beginning of wisdom—not believing ourselves incapable of harm, but recognizing that every life participates in both creation and destruction.

When we know this, we become gentler.

Not because we imagine ourselves to be good.

But because we finally see ourselves clearly.

That is what love has been asking of us all along.

Not to pretend we are innocent.

Not to convince ourselves we are righteous.

But to become what we already are—the life we have lived, the experiences we have accumulated, the desires that have shaped us—and to hold reverence for what we see.

For what we are.

For only what is honored can be transformed, and only what is seen can be loved.