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The only way to defeat evil is to deny it battle

Only when you acknowledge their reality does it become real for you

By DuskshadowsPublished 2 years ago 8 min read
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The only way to defeat evil is to deny it battle. These are words I live by. Mark Twain put it another way, “Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”

These days if someone says “2+2=5” to me I will reply “absolutely! go forth and calculate my son”

I mean, seriously, when they are at that level, the earth is flat, the universe has feelings, and life will wait while everyone sits and talks about their feelings. And why not? The universe ALWAYS pays what it owes, doesn’t it?

People should be grateful we live in an unfair universe. What if it WAS fair? What if we deserved everything that happened to us? Personally, I take great comfort in the cold, hard reality of life. 

Sometimes, the only way to defeat evil is to deny it battle can be unfair to others, especially if you let your own baggage drag your head down, distorting your vision. It happens to us all. I was on the receiving end of it once a few years back. I was a field technician at the time; I had received a promotion for a position in Oklahoma. 

I used to live in Oklahoma 20 years prior, in my late teens and early 20s. Why? Because my father had gotten a promotion in his job and it was in Oklahoma! History repeats itself. Including already having old friends in Oklahoma. When I got out there, I looked a lot of them up, usually for catching up over lunch type meetings.

On a side note, Oklahoma is a state where the men are MEN………..and the sheep are nervous.

You will see what I mean.

One friend, who I will affectionately call Janet for the sake of the topic at hand, met me for lunch at a tropical smoothie place near her work. My other reunions had gone swimmingly, and I had no reason to think this one would be different. Sadly, I was mistaken. She was tense and acted almost skittish.

I was confused, but went along. It had been a long time, after all. Then a friend of hers appeared while we were standing in line and they started chatting a little. It felt odd, almost staged, but I dismissed it until the friend asked to join us and Janet said “sure!” then looked at me and said “I mean, it’s a public place…...right?”

The way she said it was telling. For me, it came out of left field. Our friendship back in the day had been in a group of people, casual and positive. We had had no problems or drama. I quickly went over our recent interactions in my mind, wondering if I had accidentally given her the impression I had…...intentions. But every convo had been “point a to point b.” Then it hit me then that she must have had a very rough 20 years.

The three of us chatted for a bit, and we all went back to our respective jobs. As soon as we parted ways, I decided I would not invite her to lunch or anything again. That whole thing, clumsy as it was, had been too practiced. I didn’t take it personally, but I also saw no reason to make her uncomfortable by being an accidental reminder of whatever.

Not long after she shared with me, she had been in two physically abusive relationships back to back and that she was indeed skittish. I was like “yup, I don’t need to carry that baggage”

Fortunately for her, Janet moved past it enough to be in a happy relationship now. 

But she was definitely denying evil battle in her mind when she had lunch with me. While I understood her precautions, I could not help but wonder why she said yes in the first place. She could have easily blown smoke up my ass with some vague refusal. I believe there had been a whole script in her mind. I am happy to say I missed all my lines, and it was a terrible performance on my part.

Also while in Oklahoma, I was the one denying evil battle. Actually, the term evil shows too much respect in this case. I was the one denying stupid battle. I had been a field tech for a long time in different parts of the country. It was an independent job. Yes, sometimes we’d have to work together on a job, but frequently there were dozens or hundreds of miles between me and my colleagues.

I had gotten very used to coworkers treating each other professionally and respecting each other’s boundaries. Unfortunately, it was a different story in Oklahoma. It becomes very clear that professional behavior is almost unknown out there, even among doctors and lawyers. I saw it everywhere I went, they resolved everything by butting heads until one person submits. It was a way of life that everyone, and I mean everyone, took part in. 

Anyone from Oklahoma knows what I am talking about. They would all agree with me, whether or not they admitted it to themselves. Might makes right is easy and perfectly suited for the lazy.

When I first started out there, I was training an entire team of techs to do my current job. For a variety of reasons, including a management change, they were short staffed. Once they were doing the job, I moved up to my new position.

It wasn’t a promotion, I quickly discovered. It was a pro-demotion. They denied me the raise that comes with the new position, as were all of us. It instantly made my decision to find another job and move on. 

Which made it even more interesting when I met the “self-appointed local supervisor.” Who had taken it upon himself to run the show since the actual manager was in Minnesota. This was an independent position, management didn’t micromanage. We documented everything for every onsite visit made, always with witnesses, so there wasn’t an actual need to. Either you did it right, or they took you to task for it.

He told me point blank he was basically using the rest of us to make him look good, so they’d want to make him a manager himself. This kid was early 20s, spent most of his life in a small town, and because he was too smart for his own good, nobody had told him “no” before.

I sighed internally. I was going to have to be the first. So I told him no, if the others let him do it, they were welcome to, but I wasn’t getting involved. I further informed him that since they didn’t do it this way anywhere else in the entire country, he shouldn’t waste his time trying to tell me his way was superior. It was nothing new. 

As expected, he went batshit crazy. He believed, because we were remote, that he could threaten and intimidate me. He quickly realized I only resolved conflicts with management involved, or HR. Or even the police, if necessary. He couldn’t seem to grasp that until his opinion could magically be converted into money I could use to pay my bills. It meant nothing to me. 

I knew I could defeat him easily if needed, but bullies don’t respect you for kicking their ass. They are used to a drunk father taking the belt to them every night, so they always come back for more. So I allowed the harassment to continue long enough to document it. I engaged once via email, carefully, to document his insanity. I engaged a second time publicly, again carefully, so management would shut him down. He still continued. Finally, I told the manager I was severing all contact with him and we could go to HR if needed.

This only went on so long because it was difficult switching jobs with the insane schedule I had and the job market. As soon as I found another job, even though it paid the same as this current position, I jumped ship. Also, it was time-consuming and expensive to train us, so it would take a LOT to fire someone, or he would have been gone.

Things went smoothly between shutting him down and finding the new gig. I had seen things like this before. Indeed, I had been on a project where people didn’t know I was there at 2am when things went down, and I saw things. I had never had to deal with it on this level before. 

Indeed, I had never dealt with an ego this inflated before. I was certain that when he masturbated; he fantasized about himself masturbating……..while looking at a mirror. Indeed, he probably held up another mirror so he could see himself holding his dork in his hand in infinite images.

These examples went a little long. I do go on. My point is, in one case, the person mistook evil but with understandable, even justifiable reasons. The other case was clearly evil, stupid evil, and handled the best way it could under those circumstances. Violence can only beget violence, so in a violent environment, a peaceful solution can take time. But it can be done.

If you decide to deny evil battle, make sure it is evil. I never mentioned that lunch to my friend, or how it made me feel. I also didn’t ask why she did things the way she did. She came to me(via messenger) and told me what was what and apologized. I was good with that, and we’re good to this day. We’re not bosom buddies or anything, but she took the time to see me and that I wasn’t evil.

It hit me a few weeks later she had been the only one of my female friends I had never slept with. All the others were mainly interested in that when they saw me again, including the married ones. Especially the married ones. Apparently, women who spend all their time filling a thousand roles enjoy being viewed as only a woman…...at least for an hour or three. 

There was a time or two Janet and I could have. We both wanted to, but at the time, it would not have worked out well. Even so, I could not help but wonder how our lunch would have gone if we HAD slept with each other back in the day.

So there’s a reason for denying evil battle will never work on me. I’m not evil. I’m bad.

It’s what makes me so goooooooooooooood.

humanity
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About the Creator

Duskshadows

For there is no freedom from me.

There is only freedom through me!!!

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