Like a bamboo splinter under the nail, I possessed the ability to antagonize and inflame people from an early age. This resulted in me being called many names, by many people, and in four languages. These names were descriptive, but not flattering. It is hard for people to love or understand those who are pricking or scratching them.

Since everything must be permissible in a universe that contains free will, someone has to fill the role of human splinter. Since I was good at this role, I must have been whittled and sharpened for just such a role.

The role requires me to perceive an opening and to bypass the defenses. It requires one to see the chink in someone’s  emotional and psychological armor, and to slip through the defenses with a sharply worded statement, accusation or conclusion. And one must judge the vulnerable party well, to avoid being injured or killed in retaliation.

As a boy, I was quick-witted and quick-footed. I found humor to be the weapon of choice. Not so much ridicule, as good natured ribbing. This is quite an art, especially when one advances to such a degree that he can insult with impunity. Or even beyond that: to be able to insult someone, without recognition by the slighted.

The best targets are the people of power, authority and pretense. The self-inflated are the easiest to shred. Nothing compares with the roasting of the rump of powdered pomposity. Except, perhaps, revealing to it a truth which was hidden behind the acquisitions of its appetites. For example: “The human mechanism and our moral nature are self-balancing fields of form and force. Each injustice committed must reverberate back to the one who committed it. All is self-administered. We are the moral accountants and auditors of our soul.”

– Raphael O’Suna,   Haiku