Disney Buys Lucas Episode 13 - School

   My education, as opposed to learning to read and write and add and learning how wonderful Our Neighbors To The South are, was at the hands of mobsters. Benedetto was the clearing house for any rough spots that I had any trouble with - usually ethical or sociological or political-sciencewise or philosophical.
   "If it wasnt for taxes we wouldn't have to exist." He said often. "Italians have an attitude about taxes: why pay some schmuck to fuck with you when you can get paid by some schmuck to - more or less - not fuck with you. Kapish?" I would always say "Not exactly" to this. And The Benster would always say "I know you ain't lyin'. I can tell by the look of dead brain cells on your face." The fact that I never lied to him - I never lied to anyone at the time - the fact that I never lied to him was the only thing he actually liked about me, and at that, the like-level wasn't all that phenomenal. The Solari line is apparently lacking in what a guidance counselor would call "the milk of human species." Add to this the Boston Irish terror of physical contact and a conviction that all are doomed to hell except the most miserable on earth - creating, in effect, a footrace among all the Irish Catholics to be the first to be the most miserable - and you have in myself - someone who -  over and above all of this gift of superior in observational powers  and drawing conclusions from them - you have someone who is a Really Aware powderkeg of dead maggots waiting to explode and cover everyone in the immediate vicinity in disgusting little corpses. That flies will immediately lay eggs in. This was then, mind you. This is not now. This was then.
   L. Ron Hubbard had an expression,"awareness level." He said Scientology would raise a person's "awareness level." I like that expression. So I use it. For the record I have seen no evidence that Scientology actually does raise a person't awareness level. If it actually did there would be no Scientologists.
   Benedetto also was a bit of a discerner of spirits. An expression you will get more thorough definitions of from the Protestants than you will the Catholics. Probably because the Catholic heirarchy wants to dissuade anyone from being aware of such an ability otherwise they will have a clear picture of the Catholic Church. Rome is nothing if not shrewd.
   Being a discerner - this is my own conclusion, not something he ever spoke of - he would say frequently "The essence of evil is not to kill and rape and torture and shoot and stab and steal and bludgeon and all the other ordinary things people call evil. The real nature of evil is to say something is the exact opposite of what it really is: not just a little different; or even a lot different; the exact bullseye mother fucking opposite. But there's more; once they convince you that something is the exact opposite of what it really is - after you act on it or make decisions based on the Perfect Lie...and then your life starts to collapse....they then say you are to blame for doing this to yourself. Which is sort of true if you are a lawyer with a snakepit for a brain; because you believed the lie, or else you hoped it was true because the spectre of seething, exciting greed filled-up your energy cells with lust for effortless reward.
You see, you can beat someone's brains out because you had a temper tantrum or because you meticulaously planned a revenge that was - or wasn't- justified. that's not evil. That's just "what we gut here on earth." Evil comes from somewhere else. It's some sort of extraterrestrial plague that has influence in humanity. Either that or the earth is simply its home and we have intruded onto it. Whatever the fuck is the case, if you can't detect it you will become its pawn. And if you can detect it, good luck telling anyone it's there, you will be chased out of the village by idiots brandishing torches. About the only thing detecting evil is really good for is watching it devour the planet and everyone in it with lies. Which people really seem to like, lies. Lies are like nutrition to humans. Do you like lies?"
   I responded that lies confused things and kept you "in a dither" as Agnes Byrne used to say. He said "Yes, they keep you in a dither. Unless you know they are lies. Then you stay out of the dither. If evil has one good aspect, or fortunate aspect, its that when evil knows you see it it never makes a point of getting rid of you. In fact it almost nods and waves hello at you because it knows you can't stop it. All you can do is postpone it. And what the fuck is the point of that."
   "Beats me," I said, because I was hoping it wasn't a rhetorical question. But, unfortunately for my curiosity at the time, it was.