A Rat's Progress

Oh well, it seems the amount of my happiness/unhappiness is always related to the amount of money on my bank account. Yes, my latest gripe originated from certain financial problems I've had lately, the nature of which better left undisclosed. Believe it or not, if not for having to worry about money all the time, I could say that I would be quite satisfied with the life I'm living. And that's the dull, sad materialism around which it all seems to revolve. I can't imagine if my life was better or not if I only had enough wealth to have myself a secured existence. Probably my problems were only of a different sort. "I'd rather cry in an Alfa Romeo than in a Lada" (Lada is a cheap Russian brand of cars popular in Finland too), as the ad slogan was in film director Lauri Törhönen's now-legendary 80s turkey about yuppie life, The Insiders. I have to admit that material concerns, such as gathering myself a shitload of money, are not too high in my current general agenda. Whereas a monk leaves everything else to dedicate his life to God, I have totally and completely dedicated my life to art (in its various guises). This is what gives me my purpose, and this is what keeps me going on. Only when that existence is threatened some way and its somehow ephemeral nature revealed, some personal cracks start to (re)appear. Thus, coming to some sort of self-knowledge has been a long and painful process where one's strengths are best found out by having to face one's weakest points.

Ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a man who mysteriously "snaps" one day, and starts to shoot totally unknown passers-by from his window, and finally himself? Has that come about of some vicious circle of falling of mental dominoes, one by one, until he can't take it any more, and only finds his way out through an irrational, murderous, irreversible act? What are the circumstances leading to this worst case scenario, this boiling point? How come his friends (if he has any) or neighbours never suspect anything strange in his behaviour leading up to this fatal event?

I think this sort of latent madness in people is more common than is believed, and only some good luck and having proper safety nets around one will prevent any more fatalities such as this to happen. And these "safety nets" being mainly social and financial (which is why I am a strong proponent of Scandinavian type of welfare state, whatever the Anglo-American detractors of it might say). As for me, I have seen myself what happens when a close person "snaps", even though the consequences were not that dramatic as described before, but enough so to leave their mark. Enough for me to realize this could well happen to me too if pushed too close to the edge, enough to start looking for any preventing personal precaution. Perhaps the main problem of this person was being unable to talk and express one's problems and letting the "steam" just build up inside -- until...