Vengeance is Mine

A long time ago I wrote an update proclaiming vengeance to be the most important thing that a healthy human being could achieve. It was so important that I revised Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, replacing self-actualization and transcendence with "REVENGE." Well, at the time critics labeled me as bloodthirsty, cold, and uncivilized. The joke is on them because now experts in England agree with me: Vengeance is a capital idea, old bean. In a recent groundbreaking scientific endeavor, researchers found that men tended to enjoy getting revenge, whereas women like shiny things.

Scientists monitored brain activity in people while they watched someone they either liked or disliked apparently suffering pain.

While women showed signs of empathy with people they both liked and disliked, men appeared to enjoy pain being inflicted on their foes.

This is what I've been telling people for ages. I'm glad science has finally decided to put my theories to the test and prove them to be facts. I can also personally attest to the accuracy of this study, as I felt quite pleasured when it vindicated my own findings. Now that we have established vengeance as a healthy activity, let us get on to the meat and pet potatoes of the matter.

For men, vengeance is clearly a healthy activity. In a world of saturated fats, blimp accidents, occasional icy driving conditions, increasing postage stamp prices, and other stressors, a healthy mind and body are critical to survival. As men, to improve your health, you should start seeking revenge immediately. Now, in the past learning how to get revenge has been a complicated procedure known only by an elite few. I'm sure you've all heard about the expensive seminars or seen advertisements for guides in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazines. Those all seemed like pyramid schemes and pits to throw money in that would later be emptied by unscrupulous men and then filled with dirt by people concerned about holes. I'm going to do you a solid and sahre with you the real secret to getting good revenge every time. No, I am not a conman, I am sharing with you the Five Steps To Vengeance so that you too can experience healthier living.

1. Be wronged
I can't stress this enough. If you want revenge, you need to be wronged first. This can be very tricky to pull off, as it is difficult to intentionally be unknowingly wronged. If you let somebody wrong you and you know that they are wronging you, then really you are just wronging yourself and the only person to blame there is you. Obviously you can't get revenge against yourself, so that's why extreme caution and cunning are needed for this step to be done properly.

Here are some things to consider that might help you get wronged:

You couldn't possibly know that someone was wronging you if you develop amnesia immediately afterwards (perhaps cursing you with amnesia is how they wronged you??).

We all know that two wrongs don't make a right, but two rights? You've got yourself a wrong there, partner.

The more right you are, the more wrong everybody else is. A little role reversal will help you land on the wrong side, or the right side of being wronged!

If you associate yourself with assholes but delude yourself into believing that they are good people, the chances of them exploiting your naiveté and wronging you are pretty high.

2. Don't get over it
A common rookie mistake after being wronged is to get over it and forgive the person or persons that wronged you. This is as foolish as you can get, and what separates the amateurs from the pros. Never forgive, and never forget. That was Benjamin Franklin's personal mantra, and he took it with him to the grave. If you accidentally get over it or forgive the person, then you're right back to square one. Think before you forgive!

This is partly why vengeance isn't for women. They would cry and probably hug and then the next thing you know all is forgiven. Either that or they would skip steps 3-4 and just fight it out like angry king cobras in the jungle of life. That kind of reckless vengeance has no place in our civilized society of numbered lists.

3. Formulate your plan of action
Now comes the most creative and second most rewarding part of the Five Steps To Vengeance. You need to concoct an elaborate scheme to get revenge on your enemies. Typical generic schemes involve murder, betrayal, and tricking your enemy into totally kissing another dude. These schemes are all rather played out and dull. In this modern age of revenge as an art form, you need to think beyond conventions. The sweeter the plan, the sweeter the payoff. Think of this as a long-term project and make it interactive whenever possible. The more entertaining your act of vengeance is to witnesses, the more they will remember you and the more respected and revered you will be in the annals of revengedom. Don't limit yourself to bombs or bullets, instead look at this as an opportunity to take your enemy apart piece by piece, crumbling them like a gingerbread man in a gingerbread woodchipper. This is your great American Novel, only with vengeance instead of words, so make sure you write a proper beginning and ending, while not neglecting a solid middle.

4. Execute your plan of action
Denying action to a great plan is like denying the stars the right to shine in the night's sky. I believe it was Ernest Borgnine who once said that. Once you have finalized all the intricate details of your plan for vengeance, you must execute! For example, if your plan was to run over your enemy's leg with a tractor while he is passed out from drinking homemade moonshine, this is the stage in your plan where you would climb onto the tractor, start it, and then proceed to drive over his leg. If Step 1 is the birth of vengeance, Step 2 is its growth, and Step 3 is its immortal soul, then Step 4 is definitely its body. It's time to move that body, baby.

5. Prepare for counter-vengeance
If all goes well, you will have wronged your enemy and put them in the exact same place you started in. This means that the cycle of vengeance has restarted, but with the roles reversed. You now have two options. You can either rejoice in knowing a new opportunity for vengeance is near, or you can guard against counter-vengeance by taking yourself out of the equation. For the former option, you merely wait for your enemy to get revenge and then follow the five steps from the beginning. For the latter, you run away like a coward. Perhaps you might change your name to something unassuming like "Egbert McHaberdashery" and take on a new life building grain silos in the Sahara. Few enemies would ever track you there, or to that name. Just keep in mind that to escape vengeance, you have to sacrifice a great deal. And in sacrifice, don't be surprised if your health declines.

I wish you the best in your future vengeance-related endeavors. I remind you to keep your vengeance clean and focused, as you do not want to accidentally wrong any innocents and thus put yourself on the receiving end of undue vengeance. However, we can infer that since vengeance feels good and is therefore healthy, obsessing on vengeance could increase your health and lifespan exponentially. While further testing is needed to determine if vengeance can make you live forever, it's definitely a possibility. The only drawback is that vengeance also brings risk, so you should only pursue danger to the extent that it is not fatal.

Daily Dirty

IMAGINE THAT!

– Josh "Livestock" Boruff (@Livestock)