The Victim

The home of our greatest weakness is also the home of our greatest strengths. Nowhere is this reflected more truthfully than in the House of the Victim.

To be a Victim means nothing more than to be completely without power. We are made Victims at the hands of other people. More insidiously, we are made Victims by our own hands. Our own voices, telling us what we cannot do. Our own condemnation, self-punishments, guilt and oppression.

It is rare to encounter people who have never felt like Victims. The people with the most pleasant upbringings will still recall that one time in their childhood that they were without power. We cling to those moments. We let them define us. This is because it is those moments that we see our true faces. Who we are, when we have nothing. Who we are, when all semblance of power is stripped away.

Most people are unable to get over the trauma of seeing their true selves. It becomes the well-spring of guilt and self-loathing, the fount of “If Only”‘s and “I should have”‘s.

This is why it is among the first lessons of the Sith is to stop saying, “I should”, and say only, “I am”. This why the first lesson of the Sith is to look at yourself, and see what you are, in all of your naked, trembling cowardice, in the glare of harsh reality. And then to say: “This is who I am.”

And then get over it.

There are two Paths the powerless take, once they recover their wits, their clothing, their masks, and their image. The first looks strong, but isn’t. It is the call of the coward, and it shouts loudly, “I will never be made powerless again!” So much fear has been put into this creature that the sight of himself without strength has become repulsive to him. Immediately a new “should” is erected. The garrison is strengthened, the towers manned and the drawbridge raised, and he walls himself away from the cost of living, the cost of loving, deciding far in advance that the price will be too much. No one may see him vulnerable again, therefore he may not be vulnerable again. Hardened and embittered, he nurses his wounds and builds his future by the law of that one failure.

The second is harder, but such is the Path of the Sith. Rather than fear that which has been revealed, the Sith stares with wonder, for he sees something else. He sees his power gone, his upper hand removed, his dignity and pride stripped from him. And he sees that HE is still there. The one thing remaining that cannot be taken away. His Self. And rather than recoil in horror from it, he learns what it is and walks away, arm-in-arm with that truth. And now he does not fear the assault of those that think they are stronger than him. He knows the worst that they can do is show him this Self again, and he does not fear that. Unencumbered then by that fear, the Sith continues down his Path freely. Unencumbered by the “should”s of what he must not do, he does as he pleases.

These are the aspects of the Dark: the monsters under your own bed, and the face in the mirror you don’t want to see.

This is the mirror the Victim has to offer us.