Journaling Prompt #11 â€“ Picking The Less Obvious Point Of View -or- Being The Devil’s Advocate

July 23rd, 2008 by Avital

I grew up in an affectionate and liberal household. My sisters and I were raised upon the virtues of love and respect and in my humble opinion, these are great values to grow up by.

I was taught that these values are measured not in times of peace but in times of war and despair. This life lesson is not easy to put into practice, but I am trying to follow it, the best way I can. I have found lately that writing can help me to follow through and practice love and respect in times of frustration and anger.

When you stumble upon a grave injustice in life, it is natural to get mad and let all the dark hatred loose. It is easy to see the wrongs and the faults in a vicious act – because it is wrong. It is much more difficult to look at the evil act through the eyes of the evil who has done it. Trying to find a purpose or a reason to something which is beyond understandable to us. Caution is essential, as you are going down a slippery slope here. You are not supposed to find justice in a bad deed. You are not supposed to accept it and understand it but you can look at it with a different set of eyes.

I find that writing about a horrible act of viciousness from the eyes of the villain can help me discharge my anger and inherent hatred. Mostly I feel better after that exercise for two main reasons:

First, I am free to write whatever I wish, so I can give the villain a proper background that can somehow explain why he did what he did (abuse, indoctrination… etc.) and I can also take care that the villain receives a due punishment.
Second, I can check out my own moral compass. By finding it extremely difficult to sink down the villain’s abysses I can see that my own moral compass is intact.

This week’s journaling prompt is to write about something extremely wrong which has happened recently from two different perspectives â€“ your own perspective and the villain’s perspective.

Please share your writing through commenting to this post.