Confessions of a Devious Mind

On revenge fantasies and Little Steven Van Zandt. Plus: Pema. Stoics. Ada Limón.

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I was deep into one of the recent Pema books I bought a few months ago, called Start Where You Are, doing my usual slow-reading and underlining routine, hoping to retain some of the valuable information and insight, but failing again, outside of this one section that made me feel exposed, attacked, and several other uncomfortable emotions.

In Chapter 18, “Taking Responsibility for Your Own Actions,” she highlights a substantial list of “Don’t” slogans that all rookie bodhisattvas need to commit to memory, including “Don’t ponder others,” “Don’t malign others,” and “Don’t wait in ambush.” Then came this one — “Don’t act with a twist.”:

“It means don’t be devious, but it’s similar to those slogans about not eating poisonous food or turning gods into demons. You’re willing to take all the blame for yourself very publicly so everyone will notice, because you want people to think well of you. Your motivation is to get others to think that you’re a great person, which is the “twist.” Or there’s a person who’s doing you wrong — you don’t say, “Buzz off,” or anything harsh. You’re a sweet person who wins everyone’s admiration. Still, on the other side of this, they dislike the person more and more for mistreating you. It’s as if you set that person up by acting like a saint. That’s the idea of acting with a twist. There are all kinds of ways to get sweet revenge.”

This is how I understood it in my own context. For me, “acting with a twist” is a way of forgiving people who’ve slagged you in the past — publicly taking the high road instead of responding negatively. However, the intent to bury those same individuals — that sweet revenge — is the same, but undetectable and so much cleaner.

After reading this, I realized I can still behave this way, even though I make a deliberate, sustained effort to be a more decent person. I’m not lobbying to win the Comeback Human of the Decade award, I don’t think — but I do want certain people to know I have changed, or, at the very least, I’m trying to change. But maybe I’m kidding myself, and I’m still thrashing about here more than I suspected.