Man ... do I even exist anymore? I don't think so, I think I've been replaced with job applications, dissertations, papers, and various other forms of mathematics, but I can crawl out of this depressing cave of boring to give you my thoughts on 2 Samuel even though I can't remember half of it anymore. Wait, no, I remember the important parts, it's about David, my main man David, and his inevitable downfall. Was it inevitable? I think so, much like main character deaths are inevitable in Joss Whedon shows, the moral fall of a holy character in the Bible is pretty much a must. This is the book that takes David at what would be any normal person's lowest point, the slaughter of the secret homosexual love of his life, and showed just how much worse shit could get. Why did this book take me so long to get through and finally finish writing about (besides the whole PhD bullshit)? Because this book is depressing. It takes our main man David, the most under of all underdogs and kicks him while he's down. Leave it to the Bible to throw a curve ball like that to the pinnacle of all underdog stories, "No, our victorious underdog doesn't live happily ever after, he gets fucked over an uncountable number of times, the end." Hard to stomach that, don't you think?
There's a couple of obvious messages hiding (or screaming in the foreground) in these exploits though. The first one that hit me was obviously the whole "power breeds corruption" motif. I'd say this is shown through David knocking up Bathsheba just because he could (and that she was hot enough to turn a gay man straight), and then trying to get out of it by tricking her celibate husband. Oh when that doesn't work he just basically has the guy put to death, the front lines of ancient armies will do that after all. And he does all this because he can. Or is he acting out of depression, the man lost the love of his life, and his only real father figure (as crazy as he was), personally I don't think David ever recovers from this loss, and he only gets more and more messed up. But throughout David keeps his sense of honor that he had in 1 Samuel. He doesn't want to kill the enemy general, or Saul's son on the opposite side of a civil war. He doesn't want his rebelling son killed either. And yet sporadically he has lapses, killing a messenger that told him about Saul and Jonathan's deaths, having Bathsheba's husband killed. It's all very confusing, and much like the actions of a man in extreme pain, a man barely keeping himself together.
This is exactly how I read 2 Samuel, here's a man who was the posterboy of Israel, God's chosen leader, and what happens? The love of his life is slaughtered, his infant son is intentionally and horribly killed by God himself, how in the hell would you respond? Well David is depressed to the point of dangerous apathy, his own son rapes his half-sister and he does nothing. Why? He does nothing for two years until Absalom takes the law into his own hands, and David still does nothing, even though he was happy with what Absalom did, why? Despite this he let Absalom stay away for years, and then do nothing while after Absalom's return he blatantly plans a coup. Why does he do this? The answer I've come to is that he's at a point of intense depression, so severe he can't even act to save his own family. Through his inaction he sees rape, fratricide and banishment in his own family, he does nothing while a coup forms right under his nose, and barely has the effort to run away from his own son or deal with a crazy rock throwing bastard. The man is defeated, and this defeat is like a big snowball of further defeat and with every horrible thing that happens accumulates and eventually it's too gigantic to stop and Absalom is hanging in a tree and being stabbed through the heart with spears.
If David would have acted, done something, done anything regarding Absalom, he would still be alive. David could've easily avoided a coup, could've easily had Absalom as an ally. His inaction is his main downfall (in this way he reminds me somewhat of Hamlet, but David is too depressed to even be indecisive, he's just inacative), and his inaction is cause by his loss and his pain. The message I get out of this is one I think many people can learn from. We will all see loss, on a long enough time span we will all lose our father figures, we will all lose the loves of our life, and hopefully we wont lose our children, but it does happen. Yes this loss is hard, so very hard, harder than I can even imagine being merely a greenhorn, but life has to go on. David saw his entire family and kingdom fall apart because he let his pain and loss get the better of him, he let it drive him to a place of insane apathy. And sure, with great loss, all anyone wants to do is crawl into a cave and drink themselves to death. But you can't (or at least shouldn't), sure it takes time, but everyone has someone else counting on them, everyone's got shit to take care of, you have to get over it. Because if you don't, well I think David's story is a nice metaphor for exactly what can happen if you don't.
For some reason while typing this I'm reminded of the film What Dreams May Come, again very broad strokes dealing with a similar subject. Specifically, I'm thinking of Robin Williams' wife, how the death of their children destroyed her, which honestly I can't even imagine what that would be like, but still, at some point life must continue. Her pain drove her into her own hell, both figuratively and literally, and only Robin Williams could save her from it ... from both of them. When watching it I was certainly conflicted, on one hand I'm of course sympathetic, I can't imagine the death of a child, mainly because I have none. But at the same time I find it hard to sympathize with someone who would just say "fuck the world" like that, especially when her husband was still in it, and was in just as much pain, and had to be the lone one taking care of shit. Then there's certainly the message that says you need a man to pull you out of your own depression, which is complete bullshit, but a discussion for another day. I don't know what my point is here, I guess it's that I don't think it's valiant or right to let your loss and pain destroy you, especially when you have responsibilities, and I think 2 Samuel gives a nice (if exaggerated) parable showing exactly why. But I suppose some people might disagree, what do you think?
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