Unwilling to kill

I had a strange dream the other night. Without boring you with the entire story, I stood face to face with someone who broke into a house I grew up in. I pulled out my gun and did the whole 'get the f- out' thing. Of course he didn't so I chambered a round and pointed it at him. I was trying to decide whether to shoot him in the face, chest or stomach. I had time to think about whether this would be legal and I decided I wouldn't get in trouble since he was an intruder. He was testing me. I wasn't scared to pull the trigger. I was completely ready to take his life. The trouble within came from my unwillingness to kill another human being. He came after a set of pearls. That was all. He was posing as a maintenance person and was very slick with his words. I understood his motivation and it wasn't to threaten my life. It was simply to get something for himself, and more importantly, teach me something about myself.

I'd like to be so bold as to say that people underestimate me. In a way they do. In another way, I'm probably just as much of a coward as anyone else. At least as other people define 'coward.' I don't like confrontation. I'd rather let people live their own lives as long as they leave me alone. Sometimes I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I get rather offended when people impose their actions on my livelihood but I try to let it go. Just like getting robbed years ago. I forgive the guy for what he did. I'm sure he didn't choose me specifically as a victim, but as the situation escalated he had to try and finish what he started.

I've been trying to think of what this dream is interpreted to in my life. At the moment of final showdown I noticed that I was alone. I was no longer going to kill him for the sake of anyone else. No one cared. So what would killing him do for me? Absolutely nothing. As I write about this, I wonder what I 'would' kill for. First thing that comes to mind is catching a rape in progress. Next thing would be harm to family or close friends. I guess these are pretty typical things however I question my ability to be ok killing for any other reason, including war.

I'd love to write about the dynamics of taking human life away from others but this is more so focused on something more personal to me. In this dream, he wasn't scared of the gun pointed at him. He was rather 'un-scared' of my indecision to pull the trigger. This figure was trying to tell me something that I wish I could remember right now. Maybe it was as simple as being able to make the decision to pull the trigger, regardless of what others think. Maybe it was deeper than that. Though my life is less than extraordinary, I will always be a believer that life is not meant to be lived less than something absolutely wonderful. This dark place I found myself in is the thing inside me that leads me to temptation instead of wisdom. I know better about things in my life but I tend to take the easy way through and end up sorely unsatisfied. It's not about my decisions for a career, or even how I view a relationship. It's about something more than that. Whatever it is, I think it's what drives people away. (At least the people that would matter in my life).

This is not a very deep writing tonight. It merely scratched the surface of something that I really have no idea how to tap into right now. Maybe I just need to find a way to have better dreams at night and I'll figure some more stuff out about myself.