“It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.”
- - Charles Baudelaire
The victim, from Latin victima denoting a sacrifice echoing in the Gothic wihs, meaning ‘holy’ and the Germanic weihen,’ consecrated’ took a long journey until it surfaced in British language in 1650 denoting a person tortured or in deadly suffering until it Germany 1718 was given the meaning of someone oppressed by people, powers or situations. It is the latter we are accustomed to refer to when we use the term victim in our vernacular.
It is a sad condition – because at the root of it all to be a victim is a choice. Because we are a victim only if we choose to be one. I recall a conversation long time back, a friend of mine were a victim of sexual abuse – as I saw it and told her. She got furious; calling her a victim was for her quite different than stating the facts. I got a lesson that day – an insight if you will – and this insight still marks me in a quite wicked way – as I take on the same aggression when people victimize themselves. I know my story and the reason – but the one who chooses to be victimized doesn’t. Language and history gets in the way and communication gets erratic and venomous.
The victim so often desires to be the victim…because it affirms so strongly Self…
I believe that we can manifest our dreams – and I believe we can be masters of our own Fate – but we can also succumb to the challenges and get lost even to ourselves. Of course, abuse in any form is an evil – but to become a victim for it or not – that is always a choice.
Life gives us scars, wounds, ulcers – but also joy, love and ecstasy. There is a balance at play in the highest ovation as it is in the most dirty depths. But can we see it so we can make the balance straight?
