A God Moment
I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but I felt a gentle nudge: “Listen.” It was one of those God nudges., so I sat up and turned my attention to my computer. Often when I can’t sleep, I will listen to YouTube channels and fall asleep - I never know what podcast i will wake to....
On the screen, Oprah is interviewing James Kimmel Jr., a revenge and violence researcher, lawyer, and lecturer in the psychiatry department at Yale University School of Medicine. He is discussing his bestselling book, The Science of Revenge.
He is telling a personal story.
As a teenager, he had been bullied by a group of local farm boys. One night they drove past his home and shot his dog. He was devastated. Later, when the same boys returned and smashed the family mailbox, his anger exploded. He grabbed a loaded revolver from his father’s nightstand, jumped into his mother’s car, and chased the truck to a farmyard, cornered them, and pulled out the gun.
He was moments away from shooting them when, “I somehow glimpsed into my own future,” he recalled, “and saw that if I killed them, I’d be killing part of myself too.”
So he lowered the gun and left the yard. The boys had never bothered him again.
“But I wasn’t the same, I had acquired a taste for revenge which had not been satisfied, Now I just needed to figure out how to get my revenge without overpaying. ....“When I realized lawyers are the only people in our society licensed to prescribe, manufacture, and sell revenge, I studied to be a lawyer."
Everything he did was legal. It was taught, practiced, and encouraged by lawyers everywhere. But when he reflected on the gratification he received from winning, the damage it was doing to his relationships and mental health, and the grip it held over him, he came to a disturbing conclusion. Being a bully came with a cost.
“Slowly I realized that even though everything I did was legal. It became darker and more vengeful with time and it spilt into my personal and family life. I was exhausted and bruised from inflicting and receiving all that pain. I felt increasing guilt about making my opponents suffer. I felt I had become nothing more than a junkie shooting up in a courtroom and looking for the next hit.”
Then together with Oprah, Kimmel wove decades of Yale research together with intimate and often heartbreaking personal stories to show how revenge begins and what keeps it alive, The conversation began with a simple premise: insecurity, fear, anger, humiliation, and the sense of being wronged and how it all become fuel for revenge.
Members of the audience offered words such as fear, anger, hatred, and vengefulness. Kimmel agreed but then pushed deeper. Every grievance acts as a trigger, he explained, but the real question is what happens inside the brain once that trigger is pulled.
Kimmel summarized the anatomy of revenge this way:
One of Kimmel’s more provocative claims is that serious mental illness, as defined by the DSM, is not the primary driver of most violence.
Instead, the missing link is often grievance combined with a compulsive desire for revenge.
The grievance becomes the trigger. Revenge becomes the perceived solution. Violence becomes the outcome. When it becomes compulsive and destructive, it begins to resemble an addiction. That distinction matters because addictions can be treated.
As I listened, I sank back into my pillows.
“Why do I have to listen to this, God?” I wondered aloud...
Then Kimmel begins to talk about his solution -- the Science of Forgiveness.
The Science of Forgiveness!
This is definitely a God moment.
I order the book.
"Understanding the world's deadliest addiction - and how to overcome it." Kimmel
On the screen, Oprah is interviewing James Kimmel Jr., a revenge and violence researcher, lawyer, and lecturer in the psychiatry department at Yale University School of Medicine. He is discussing his bestselling book, The Science of Revenge.
He is telling a personal story.
As a teenager, he had been bullied by a group of local farm boys. One night they drove past his home and shot his dog. He was devastated. Later, when the same boys returned and smashed the family mailbox, his anger exploded. He grabbed a loaded revolver from his father’s nightstand, jumped into his mother’s car, and chased the truck to a farmyard, cornered them, and pulled out the gun.
He was moments away from shooting them when, “I somehow glimpsed into my own future,” he recalled, “and saw that if I killed them, I’d be killing part of myself too.”
So he lowered the gun and left the yard. The boys had never bothered him again.
“But I wasn’t the same, I had acquired a taste for revenge which had not been satisfied, Now I just needed to figure out how to get my revenge without overpaying. ....“When I realized lawyers are the only people in our society licensed to prescribe, manufacture, and sell revenge, I studied to be a lawyer."
Everything he did was legal. It was taught, practiced, and encouraged by lawyers everywhere. But when he reflected on the gratification he received from winning, the damage it was doing to his relationships and mental health, and the grip it held over him, he came to a disturbing conclusion. Being a bully came with a cost.
“Slowly I realized that even though everything I did was legal. It became darker and more vengeful with time and it spilt into my personal and family life. I was exhausted and bruised from inflicting and receiving all that pain. I felt increasing guilt about making my opponents suffer. I felt I had become nothing more than a junkie shooting up in a courtroom and looking for the next hit.”
Then together with Oprah, Kimmel wove decades of Yale research together with intimate and often heartbreaking personal stories to show how revenge begins and what keeps it alive, The conversation began with a simple premise: insecurity, fear, anger, humiliation, and the sense of being wronged and how it all become fuel for revenge.
Members of the audience offered words such as fear, anger, hatred, and vengefulness. Kimmel agreed but then pushed deeper. Every grievance acts as a trigger, he explained, but the real question is what happens inside the brain once that trigger is pulled.
Kimmel summarized the anatomy of revenge this way:
- A grievance activates the brain’s pain network, particularly the anterior insula.
- To balance that pain, the brain engages its reward circuitry, including the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum.
- Revenge creates a temporary sense of relief and satisfaction, much like an addictive substance.
- The prefrontal cortex, which normally restrains harmful impulses, can become overwhelmed, allowing revenge-seeking behavior to become compulsive.
- Most people experience desires for revenge, but only some become trapped in addictive patterns of acting on those desires.
One of Kimmel’s more provocative claims is that serious mental illness, as defined by the DSM, is not the primary driver of most violence.
Instead, the missing link is often grievance combined with a compulsive desire for revenge.
The grievance becomes the trigger. Revenge becomes the perceived solution. Violence becomes the outcome. When it becomes compulsive and destructive, it begins to resemble an addiction. That distinction matters because addictions can be treated.
As I listened, I sank back into my pillows.
“Why do I have to listen to this, God?” I wondered aloud...
Then Kimmel begins to talk about his solution -- the Science of Forgiveness.
The Science of Forgiveness!
This is definitely a God moment.
I order the book.
"Understanding the world's deadliest addiction - and how to overcome it." Kimmel
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