In Austria, a 73-year old man was tried for: locking his daughter in a basement for 24 years; raping her repeatedly; having 7 children with her; and the murder of an infant.



Josef Fritzl received a sentence of life in a psychiatric prison (at 73?) for his deplorable actions.  His behavior was heinous at best.  In fact, there aren't words adequate to fully describe what this man has done.  Words cannot do justice for what he did to his progeny.  After building a bunker, Joseph Fritzl robbed his daughter of 24 years.  He made her birth children from him with a pair of scissors, disinfectant and a book about child birth.

Scum is a nice word to describe what Joseph did.  Scum may be too nice though.  What about his wife?  She was around.  She must've been suscipious at least once over the course of 24 years (what with not having seen her daughter over that time.)  Fritzl's wife is not on trial though. 

She must've watched him build his sound-proof room in the basement with a remote-control electronic door described as similar to a bank vault.  Fritzl's wife must've watched Jospeh over 24 years.  In that time she did nothing to expose her husband.  Did he do anything to expose himself to her?  Nobody knows, but she must've been suspicious at least once.  She's not on trial though.  She did not take an active role in the abuse suffered by Joseph's daughter. 

This may be a primary conflict of our existence.  How often do we not take an active role?  How often do our voyeuristic tendencies support gross injustice in the world?  Understand, I'm not trying to absolve myself here.  I'm scum the same as all of you are scum.  You can take the cue from the Bible or from Sigmund Freud, the underlining message is the same. 

We all are creatures imperfect as a necessary part of our essence!

For a concrete example, look at pornography on the Internet.  It doesn't just appear out of nowhere.  The Internet is a reflection of us as creatures on this planet and pornography is an interesting study not as something to be erradicated necessarily but rather as a way to observe who we really are when: the doors get locked; the bedroom lights go off; and we express our most animal desires.

The term pornography suggests sex between two (or more) people, but look at the pornography out there.  The word sex becomes strange when compared to the actions captured on film.  Sex seems to suggest some kind of love or pleasure (or at least seems like it should,) but there's so much pornography that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with love or pleasure.

Domination is rampant in pornography today.  Whether we're talking about the "money shot" that seems to end almost every scene between a man and a woman or straightforward sado-masochism (i.e. whips, bondage and humiliation.)  Pornography, by and large, shows people engaged in sex while dwelling in anger. 

That's not the weird stuff though!

How did poop become erotic?  It's out there.  People dumping on each other in the name of love.  And apparently people are watching it too.  Animals, unwilling participants and peeing have all been brought into the universe of pornography.  These activities, many times, make many of us want to eradicate the evidence of these tendencies. 

Stamp out pornography. 
Make pornography illegal.
Cause those engaged in sexual activity to feel shame.

These are all tactics to address deficiencies within us all, yet we still are imperfect no matter how hard we try to deny it.  We keep our imperfection locked away.  We don't express how deviant we really are in the company of others.  We're all sick. A case like Josef Fritzl's gives us opportunity to feel good about ourselves though. 

If nothing else, we're not that f'ed up!  We should also feel good about each other when a case like Fritzl's surfaces.  Examples like his turn up very infrequently, especially considering the number of people on this planet.

I don't have any solution to offer here.  I simply offer this explanation so maybe we might think for a moment rather than: scapegoat Fritzl; shake our fist; feel better about ourselves; and then forget about the whole thing. 

We are all sick, according to Freud.
We are all imperfect, according to death.
We are all sinners, depending on your god.

Our hope, and where we might find inspiration, is that we are generally well-intentioned.  We generally need to, at least, rationalize our actions to ourselves.  Fritzl rationalized his actions.  Fritzl reportedly said: his daughter was out of control at 18; he locked her up too long; then, he couldn't let her out.

We struggle, some more than others, to understand what we are doing.  In order to understand what we are doing there's got to be a focus on each day.  No matter how banal or boring it might seem, each day is all we've got.  Each moment until the next. 

That's it!

Some say death motivates our lived authentic experience.  We are defined by our impending possibility not to BE anymore.  None of us know when it will happen.  We all should know it will happen.  It's not so depressing when you realize death is our possibility for life.

Death, then, motivates our lived authenticity.

You may ask, 'What does that mean?' but I don't think that's the right way to look at the question.  It may be more helpful to ask, 'What does that feel like it means?'  It seems like an oddly prudent, human question. 

A calculator demands specifics.
Humans have intuition.
Intuition and possible psychosis, but intuition nonetheless.

I want to say something brilliant here but I'm not that person.  Often I think, we are so detrimentally affected in our judgments as creatures on this planet that there isn't one person who will provide THE ANSWER.  THE ANSWER seems to be in us collectively.  Maybe we express THE ANSWER as how we live before our individual ceasing to BE takes place.

What did it mean for you to have been?  What kind of patterns did you establish which won't BE anymore?  What will people say about you when you're gone? 

Where was the love?