The Thief in My Living Room
Through the three slaps exercise, I am suspicious now.
Do I even know when I am slapping myself?
I know that nobody other than me can move my hand.
If someone touches me, that belongs to the second case.
If I have biological or physiological issues, that belongs to the first case.
So I am settled: if I move my hand, it is because of me.
I have resolved the first two cases.
I have no control there, so I let them be.
Now I want to take responsibility for my hand, now that I have accepted I have full control over it. Otherwise, I will keep slapping myself. Which is also fine—but at least I will no longer escape into the second case.
I saw the truth that I have full control over my hand. And yet something still does not make sense. If I have full control, how am I slapping myself when someone merely asks me to? This sounds like madness.
So I invite a thief into my living room to understand what is happening.
The thief is standing in my living room. We see each other. The scene freezes here.
I want to make one thing clear: he and I are not different. Whatever I realized about my own hand applies to him as well.
I am neither inferior nor superior to the thief. From the first moment of contact, we are not only in the same physical space, but also in the same psychological space.
It does not matter what either of us has or does not have.
We both share the same thing: full control over ourselves.
We both have the same thing to lose: full responsibility for ourselves.
All people in every scenario are given the same power and placed in the same test.
We are all equal: equally strong, equally weak.
In this frozen scene, which case am I in?
Did I invite the thief? Could I have avoided this situation? Those questions pull me into the second case. May God give me superhero powers.
Did the thief simply appear? Did I do nothing to deserve this? Those questions drag me into the first case. What have I done, God?
I can invent arguments to convince myself that I am in the first or second case. I have no interest in any of that.
I face this situation from the third case. My eyes are locked on my hands and nothing else.
Will they slap me?
Someone is asking me to slap myself.
Will I do it?
What will that slap look like?
I go inside myself.
What is happening?
What do I actually want to do?
It is only the two of us.
There is no escape, no access to the outside.
How am I going to get out of this?
What are my options?
What is justifying those options?
Am I going to kill him?
Am I going to let him do whatever he wants?
What about my values? My life? My manhood? My humanity?
I am not interested in what is moving his hand.
What is going to move my hand?
That is not going to be a slap on my face.
If I am moved by emotion, I am slapping myself.
If I am moved by justification, I am slapping myself.
By social right, by religious right, by moral right etc.
In all of those cases, I am slapping myself.
I am not taking responsibility for my hand.
Can I find something that will not stand between me and my hand?
This challenges me.
I do not know how to move my hand without those things.
I do not know how to stop my hand without those things.
How could there be movement without a reason?
My control feels hijacked.
I am puppeteering my own hands.
How is this possible?
There is no one here, and the thief is not moving.
It is an indisputable fact that:
nobody has power over my hand,
and I do not need any power to protect that.
I discover that I have full control over my hand, and yet I cannot reach it.
I have full control, 100% control without a doubt.
This is not a joke.
The joke is this:
I slap myself and then say that someone else slapped me.
How is that even possible?
Who is the thief here?
I am going to stay with the thief.
Until he steals everything that comes between me and my hand.
The thief is going to protect my hand.
Until it is an empty living room.