Predator vs. Victim

by Kimo Therapy

As we approach the next level of human evolution, humans are no longer threatened by other life forms. We are, for all practical purposes, at the top of the food chain - and our instinctual drives are being practiced and played out on each other for competition’s sake. Humans are either victims or predators. There is no in-between, no normal people excluded from these two precepts. Especially in modern American society, you either get victimized or you are the victor. The human species has a hierarchical chain of victims and predators, in that sometimes you may victimize some people and other times you are victimized by those same people. However, the key to surviving and prolonging your genes (the ultimate animal instinctive goal in life) is to reduce the amount of victimization you incur. It doesn’t necessarily mean you must be a predator all the time. Simply, if you lack necessary resources to prevent being victimized, you must act as a predator to gain these resources to achieve your ultimate goal - children, stardom, immense wealth, control of a nation, evangelism, etc. To be a victim, you must be victimized more than 50% of the time in your waking life, and the converse applies to being a predator. While it is possible to swing from a predator state to a victim state throughout your life, in the end, after all the summing and averaging has been done, a person must fall into one or the other of these two categories.

The Predator

Predators indeed drive aggressively. Usually predators are fierce, cold-blooded human beings with amassed wealth and power. They drive aggressively, strive to be leaders and trendsetters, enjoy hard physical activity and thrive on stress and physical pain - to some extent. They see the world as a consuming environment and care not for what may happen after they cease to exist. They live only in their self-concerned, egomaniacal moments.

The Victim

Victims are benign people who care for other victims and are emotional and sensitive to their environmental surroundings. They usually are dependent on one or more other individuals for certain things and they typically possess irrational fears of things such as heights, closed spaces, and animals. They live an altruistic and charitable life while ignoring the instinctive desires to be the best, have the most, and control the masses.

The great philosopher of society, Thomas Hobbes, speculated about the strange phenomenon where if you were the only human alive, would you ever be a victim or a predator? To what, then, does the definition of victim apply? Are you a victim if an earthquake kills you? I think so. But I believe we are referring to societal victimization. In that case, if you found yourself in total isolation, then, no, you would neither be a victim nor a predator. So the victimization I’m talking about is merely a product of society.

Take inner city driving: all people who move with the flow of traffic are victims when they adhere to this behavior. Nevertheless, John Doe may follow behind obediently in a traffic jam, but he’ll come home and beat his children because he was angry that he HAD to go through that traffic. Here, we see John Doe being victimized by other drivers and then conversely victimizing others because he himself was victimized. This type of stupidity happens all the time in human behavior. The new father was beaten as a child so now he beats his own children.

Interestingly enough, my driving habits have changed significantly in the last few months after my work accident. I used to have to drive every day from sea level up to 14,000ft altitude on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii just to work as a young, aspiring optical engineer for one of the world-class telescopes up there. On my drive home one evening I was impatient and disgruntled from the amount of driving I had to do; I took a 25mph turn at 50mph and rolled the company Chevy minvan 2.5 times. I tend to think my predatory behavior caused me to end up being a victim, and I now firmly believe that this pattern transformation of predator into victim happens every day in our lives. Those predators that are never victimized in their entire lifetime are so far and few in between that one should not even add them into the world population as a legitimate population sample. Maybe Jack the ripper was one of these cats. So it is not to your advantage to be a total predator. You won’t have any friends, trust me.

As far as causing traffic jams, predators are definitely the ones causing rush-hour traffic jams, and they do sometimes cause the ruin of countries. But one must not forget that the Yin and Yang of our world would break down from the extermination of predators. In other words, if our ENTIRE world population were all victims and there were no predators, no evolutionary push forward would occur and technology and genetic time would cease to advance us, for there would be no one to push us forward, no Wallaces, Stalins, Gates, Rockefellers, Caesars... and no Hilters.

Another example: Bush and Cheney are victims right now and are holding victimized positions when you consider all the White House aides and advice givers - i.e., present-day soothsayers - surrounding them. The president of the United States gets elected as a victim every now and again so that Congress and other conspirators behind the “green curtain” get to roll the predator ball for a while. But what’s the sense in placing blame other than to be a bitchy victim? No one is ruining it for us except ourselves. It’s not the president’s fault or your Boss’ fault. You must realize you will be a victim if you let predator-inflicting objects like cars, computers, and electricity control and manipulate you. I am a victim to my car because I cannot go to work without it; I am a victim to work because I could not maintain my present lifestyle without it. To truly become totally predatory, one must assume the animal state of a Hobbesian Society where you are dependent and trusting of absolutely no one. Then and only then will you feel the salivating desire that a lion king feels in the wild African savanna.

My consensus from this essay is this: we are all victims at one time or another. Even presently, I’d say many American adults are victims. The key is to live your life in such a way that you can tolerate the number of things and people that victimize you. It is a ratio of sums that must be carefully weighed in your own personal account of possessing individualization. If you feel that the victimization is outweighing the victimizing in your life, you must to say to yourself, “who the fuck cares about this particular shit?” and let go of your fears and apprehensions to assume a predatory state of being - even say ‘fuck you’ to the little old lady who does not smile when you buy that cappuccino if it helps turn the tide. As we get older we are going to realize - and I think this happens for the most of us when we reach midlife - that “it” really doesn’t matter. Yes, John, I am talking about the “it” in “it is raining.” We are alive for only a few precious blinking moments in this universe and we should avoid living our lives without purpose or focus, for it is the lack of these things that allows us to become victims instead of predators. If you wander without focus; if your habitual ways lead you to a monotonous lifestyle where the drive home is the same shit every day; then you are becoming a victim. So do not let yourself be controlled by virtuoso men holding a paper dragon democracy diploma. Do not let yourself become dependent on debts, cars, electricity, computers, and jobs for satisfaction and pleasure because when you do... you, my friend, are the victim.

Well, if you’ve made it this far into these rambling, quasi-coherent thoughts, I’m afraid I must tell you that you have just been victimized by me. My ideas have eaten a few precious moments of your life that are only to be replayed forever inside your head when your subconscious mind dreams of tearing apart gazelles in tall, African grasses. “So long and thanks for all the fish!”