Like most people, I went through a phase of interest in serial killers. They are literally like a different species of human.
One known aspect about them is that they are all thinking about suicide, sooner or later. Nearly all of them have serious substance abuse disorders.
All addictions to strong stimulation have a common purpose: the eradication of the present self, which for addicts is filled with pain, regret and all sorts of unprocessed emotions. They cannot live happily on their own.
In this respect, cruelty and heroin are the same thing, and not infrequently go together. They are both small deaths, in lieu of the Big Death. They are small suicides, enacted regularly, and which, in the case of heroin, in nearly all cases lead sooner or later to the real thing. And heroin users KNOW this, and most of them accept it, I think. The idea of playing Russian Roulette appeals to them on some level. Sooner or later their pain goes away for good.
To be good is to be able to live happily with little. To be evil is to be miserable, no matter the extent of the wealth.
This has always been true, I think. It is not so much the case that the rich cannot enter heaven, as that they cannot enter heaven without letting go, and letting go is a big, big problem for most of them. Perhaps this is the root of Christ’s analogy. You have to become small, and you cannot become small if you try and bring all your baggage with you.
I would offer again the monkey trap analogy. In Southeast Asia, I think it is, they tie jar or bottles to trees with strings–jars or bottles that will allow a monkey to put an open hand in, but not take a closed fist out–and put something like a banana a monkey would want at the bottom. Over and over and over they find monkeys trapped by these bottles, because they can’t let go of the banana. Rather, they DON’T let go of the banana. This is such a good metaphor.
To grow a larger Self, you have to let go of the smaller self, and in general, you have to do so without touching and knowing that larger Self. You have to have faith. You have to take the leap, and over time, that leap will always be rewarded.
But if I take a physical analogy, let us say your self is now a circle 1 meter in diameter. There is no linear path to a self which is 3 meters in diameter. One vanishes, then the other appears. It is like a quantum leap. The “physical” orbits of electrons are described as doing this. There is no intermediate. This is one of the reasons why many physicists do not believe there are little bits at the bottom of everything.
It is the caterpillar to the chrysalis to the butterfly, over and over. And I think it is possible to learn to do this every day, in small ways. Even the trek from 1 to 1.1 meters involves a death and rebirth.
And I suppose this is the root problem with addiction: you get the death, but never the rebirth. The addict is the person denuded of faith, and thus the possibility of redemption and growth. This is the ultimate root of evil.