I find myself sometimes thinking of absurd crimes that I might commit, absurd impulses that one never acts upon but that cross the mind nevertheless. For example, I recently saw three beautiful young men walking along the sidewalk. They were maybe 18 or 20 years old, and each beautiful in a different way—one with dark reddish hair and long sideburns that stretched nearly to the corner of his mouth. Another was smaller, thin, with dark brown hair that fell to his shoulders and a delicate but attractive face. And the third, the tallest of the three, had a buzz cut and a strong jaw, with a chiseled nose, thick lips, and a cleft chin. I imagined that somehow the three of them would be forced to undress for me. I would get to examine their bodies and choose my favorite. No sex is involved, mind you, just the joy of seeing them naked. But then I worried about how they’d feel. What if I chose one of them and another felt slighted, as if he were somehow less appealing (which of course he would be, to me, at least). Since they are all three beautiful, it doesn’t seem right to give any of them cause to believe they are not attractive. If I actually did this, would they simply be overwhelmingly relieved when I let them go, or would they also, while happy to be free of me, have doubts about their appearance. If I declared that one had the most beautiful ass, would the other two (presumably heterosexual men with no interest in my sexual preferences for them) worry about their asses? Why do even the most absurd fantasies devolve into troubling moral dilemmas. Why must one chose the best of the three? No reason to. I could simply enjoy all three asses.

Oftentimes when I’m holding a large, sharp knife, I worry that somehow some involuntary impulse will overtake me to stick it into the belly of someone nearby. Immediately after impaling the person I’ll return to my senses again, and call the police. And I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison, my live thereafter forever altered by this single, decisive, yet involuntary impulse. I don’t have the actual impulse to stab someone, but the fear that I might suddenly develop such an involuntary impulse makes me uneasy when holding sharp knives. Maybe it’s related to my belief that everyone is capable of despicable acts of violence.

I often try to imagine how someone, a murder, reaches the point in his mental life at which he’s capable of murder. I don’t think it’s that difficult. That is, I don’t think there’s a bright line one crosses. It’s a matter of imaging the act and of the aftermath, and of beginning to make room for the possibility in one’s mind. Maybe you feel the pressure to commit the act, and are vulnerable to another’s expectations or desires for you to kill someone. Expectation that you *will* do the act itself helps to make room for the possibility. This is what peer pressure does. The people you associate with affect what you do—of course.

The most horrible acts can be performed by accommodating the mere possibility in one’s mind. I was reminded of this in the movie “Capote.” The killer was already in a violent setting. His partner suggested in this setting that it would make sense for them to kill, and that he should be able to do it if he were strong. He made one quick motion with a knife to kill the first victim, without witnessing or confronting it directly. Then suddenly the realm of possible actions for him included killing people, and the other murders were easier, ones that he could face directly. It’s this broadening of one’s world view about what one can do, or how one should act, which I haven’t quite figured out yet. In one sense this expansion of one’s world is a very good thing—the liberalization of the mind. You know—contrary to how I grew up, or to the community standards that I once lived in, it’s acceptable for me to dress differently, or to marry a black woman, or to kiss a boy, or even for a gay to marry a woman. My happiness in adulthood was founded upon this broadening world view, a slow, evolutionary liberalization of my mind. There are limits, however. One has to be vigilant about how far the liberalization goes.

Vigilance is a bit of an obsession for me. It keeps me slavishly adherent to a workout schedule. One must avoid the slippery slope of skipping a day, which then makes the next day easier to skip, etc. I’m also vigilant about irony. I had an uncle—still have him, in fact—who used to suggest when I was a kid that we’ll be punished by god with the tools of our very own desires. That is, our greatest desires or obsessions will kill us. I forget exactly what it was that he was suggesting would get me in the end, but the notion has stuck with me. (Of course, since I’ve forgotten, that will surely BE the very thing that gets me. We all know that.)

I imagine such things as that one day my very obsession with weight lifting will maim me—I’ll be squatting some ridiculous weight to keep myself health and fit when I’ll have a bizarre accident, causing the weight to fall on me and render me a quadriplegic. And I’ll spend the rest of my days getting fatter and fatter, bound to a wheelchair. My passion for stained glass will eventually give me blood poisoning and ruin my mind, or will it be the daily dose of mercury from the “healthy” diet of tuna. My compulsion for finger-picking, causing open cuts on my hands, will make me vulnerable to HIV-infection. As long as I’m aware of the potential irony, I’ll be safe from it. But what of those that haven’t occurred to me? What ARE they?!