Sogno di Volare

Today, I revisited the scene of an ancient crime.

Precisely 20 years ago, on a cold, February day, I was attacked and nearly murdered by a van full of armed thugs. I spent the next month in a hospital physically recovering, and then many more years healing the psychological scars I sustained.

In the years since, there are many things I have learned about life, but I will share just a few main lessons that I have taken away from the incident and its aftermath.

To begin with, if you have been mistreated, and are looking for a shoulder to cry on, you will not find very many of them. That is because the vast majority of people upon this Earth are lost in their own world, dealing with their own problems whether large or small, and can spare very little of their time for helping those in need. Most of the people I shared my story with treated me as if I had the Bubonic Plague, responding with a mixture of both scorn and disregard. And in many ways the stigma I carried was worse than the pain I originally felt from the trauma I endured.

Second, if you are looking for justice, either for yourself or for a loved one, you will be waiting for a long, long time. There are two kinds of justice in this world. There is human justice, and then there is Divine justice. Human justice is virtually non-existent, owing mostly to the corrupt nature of humanity. Those in charge are governed by political expediency and financial concerns, both of which override any real sense of right or wrong.

Divine justice by contrast is governed by complete and total fairness, but takes many, many years, if not centuries, to be fully realized. So you can very easily die while waiting for karma to be visited upon your oppressors. Either way, you are better off spending your short time upon this Earth doing anything other than waiting for those who hurt you to be punished.

Third, those who have fallen victim to a crime must not actually view themselves as victims. That is because today's victims are tomorrow's perpetrators. If you view yourself as a victim, your nascent persecution complex will eventually make you so envious of those who have been blessed with innocence, that you will one day want to visit the same hardships upon them as were visited upon you, and then some.

Instead, you must view yourself as a survivor. For just as a man can survive a vicious attack by a wild animal in the hinterlands, so too can a man survive an attack by feral human beings on the streets of a crowded city. And just as the wild animal has no insight into its own predatory actions, and therefore cannot truly be blamed, those who prey upon their fellow man also have no real sense of self-reflection, and so cannot be blamed for what wickedness they perpetrate either.

Fourth, success is the most powerful form of vengeance imaginable. That means one day looking your persecutors in the eyes and telling them in no uncertain terms "You will not define me!" If in spite of what wretchedness transpired, you can one day go on to live a happy and productive life, then you will have essentially won, and your oppressors will have lost, for their actions were primarily intended to rob you of your contentment.

These are the main things I have learned from some of the most difficult days of my life. And it is my hope that they provide some small help to others who may have found themselves similarly hurt and struggling from painful events in their past.