Do you have a killer instinct? Every great conqueror has it - defined by Wikipedia as “the human propensity to do whatever it takes to survive or achieve a goal, even killing another human being.” Now obviously I’m not glorifying the act of killing - not by any means. The main idea of this column is that sometimes in order to overcome your opponents, you need to be ruthless. This is because life, as I discussed previously in Life Is Harsh, isn’t all flowers and roses. Sometimes you need to get your hands dirty, shed a little blood, and hurt someone’s feelings. Assholes exist for a reason - they might annoy us most of the time, but when someone needs to be told off and have their feelings hurt, the asshole is the only one willing to do so.
Don’t have any enemies? Make some. Don’t have anything to conquer? Find something. You aren’t a winner until you’ve fought a battle and come out on top. You need to get some battle scars. You need to get roughed up. You need to get your feelings hurt. Maybe you need to get your ass-kicked, or do some ass-kicking yourself. Maybe even both.
When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved.
-Fight Club
Whoever said that fighting is never the answer got it wrong - horribly, horribly wrong. Fighting has solved many problems. There’s a time to negotiate, and a time to fight. If negotiation fails, which it sometimes does, then fighting solves your problem. Whoever wins goes on victorious and enjoys the spoils. The loser meanwhile, goes home with nothing. Problem solved. Many of the problems in the world today remain unsolved because people can’t accept the fact that they need to fight it out. How do you solve the problem of two dogs and one bone? How do you figure out who should be allowed to live in Israel, when both sides claim the same land, and will die before they give it up? Put all the smartest people together in the world and I bet you they’d never figure out a solution that didn’t involve one side destroying the other, if that’s what the two sides want to do. Life is harsh. People go hungry. People die. There’s no guarantee of a healthy, happy, fulfilling life for anyone. Some would think that’s a terrible thing but to me, that makes life even more special and more beautiful. I don’t have any expectations. I’d rather have nothing than get something without earning it and I don’t expect to be taken care of - not by God, not by some cosmic principle called karma, and certainly not by the government. Although I want to be able to count on my family and friends, I understand that even though they’ll try their hardest, they can’t always be there for me or solve all of my problems. I’ll just have to face them myself, for better or for worse.
I’m like a soldier, your life is over
Im’a strike like a cobra and smile like the joker
You a statistic, your shit all twisted
I, unleash the beast without three sixes
-Cormega, “Endangered Species” from The True Meaning
Now that we’ve established that fighting and competition are a part of life, we see now that if you want to win, then you need to learn to spare no one and no thing that stands in your path. Your opponents and obstacles are like twigs underneath your feet. They’re like plastic bags caught in the fury of your storm. They’re ants scurrying around, trying to escape your foot stomping on their anthill, destroying their pathetic little life and their entire way of existence. Ruthless? Yes, and part of our nature. We’re animals and although we’ve come a long way from the jungle, that quality allowed us to survive. For most of our short history, resources have been a finite good that had to be fought over. While nice people have their place in a society, you can bet a tribe never sent its nicest people to fight a battle. No one respects a warrior until they need their ass protected.
This warrior spirit is what you need to adopt if you desire to do something that requires you to compete against and defeat your opponents. You might not need as much ruthlessness if you’re creating a work of art or making a scientific discovery. But even in the music biz and in academia, you’re going to need to fight at some point, whether it involves competing against other artists for a record deal or competing with other PhD’s for that tenured position or research money. You’d be surprised at the human instincts that come out of us when competing against others, no matter the place. English departments at Universities are said to be some of the most ruthless places ever. Think you can reach your goals without stepping on some eggshells and hurting someone’s feelings? Maybe, maybe not. But sometimes there’s no way around it and someone’s gotta be an asshole, whether that person is you or someone you hire to fill that role. There are simply too many of people’s feelings out there that are standing in your way - you’re going to have to just let the chips fall where they may and leave it to them to get over it.
The killer instinct is both beautiful and ugly, deadly and life-saving. It’s complex and controversial, and thus learning to be a conqueror is a balancing act - an art form in of itself. After reading this article, you shouldn’t go out and think you can act like a jerk and not feel remorse. If you do, you’re missing the point entirely. Like every behavior, you need to learn to express it only during appropriate times. There’s a time to be strict and a time to be casual. But from what I can see, a lot of people live imbalanced lives which are a bit too casual.
A lot of people in society seem to believe that ruthlessness and our killer instinct should be tamed and discouraged. I don’t necessarily disagree with them. But again, the key is be ruthless when its appropriate. At times you just need to do some trampling and utterly destroy your enemies, completely overpowering them to the point where the experience is so debilitating and painful that they won’t ever bother you again. Sometimes, what you need to conquer isn’t even an enemy or external obstacle, but rather yourself. Sometimes you need to be your own conqueror and be ruthless to yourself, even if it means hurting your own feelings. There’s nothing special or valuable about your negative thoughts, your self-imposed limitations, your self-sabotage. They’re all weaknesses that you need to trample over. Be ruthless. Conquer, Destroy, Pillage.