What Possessed Him?

April 23, 2009

Today's Reading: Judges 16-17 and Psalm 3-4

I remember when I was working for someone, specificially, “the Man”. Now I made a mistake, and “the Man” felt need to remind me of it. I believe “the Man” said: “what possessed you” to do this.

Sadly, I explained why I made my mistake. I wish I could have said something like “the devil”. Not that the devil possessed me or anything, but people should ask “what possessed you” unless they expect some sort of demonic answer, really.

In all honesty, I don’t think anything can possess me. Yeah, I’ve heard that story about people being possessed by the devil, and it is not that I don’t believe them, but if the devil or some demonic power can somehow remove the freewill from my brain, then honestly, I just don’t want to live with the general feeling of helplessness that will last through the rest of my life.

Yeah, I would prefer to think that all the dumb things that I do in my life are a result of my own actions. I realize it would make me less accountable if I say “the devil made me do it”, but unless the devil is me, that just isn’t true.

So yeah, all the stupid things that we do in our own lives are pretty much our own fault. I’ve been writing a lot about people doing stupid things lately on this blog. I really should write about people doing smart things next time.

But Samson, he does the most stupid thing that I know of. His wife constantly nags him to give away the secret of removing his strength, and he keeps lying to her. Finally, he tells her the truth.

I can’t imagine why he keeps leading her on. Why he isn’t the least bit suspicious. Does he think that she’s trying to be some sort of dominatrix? Maybe he thought that he was invulnerable, because he was, really.

But seriously, Superman doesn’t go around and tell everyone where to get kryptonite, does he? Did Samson love Delilah so much that he was blinded to the fact that she was a double agent?

Man, this sounds like a bad spy movie, one where the audience can easily tell what will happen next. So what does possess this strongman to do such a dumb thing? Nothing. It was pure volition. He had no one to blame but himself for his actions, and neither do we.