Light, of my life. I’m not gonna hurt ya. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said, I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m just going to bash your brains in. — The Shining

One thing about getting so close to another human being that they seem almost an extension of your soul:  they know exactly which buttons to push during an argument.  If they know how to make your heart warm or your knees buckle, they will know how to make your blood boil.  Even with that, violence in the home is never the right answer, with the exception that you should never allow yourself or your children to be physically abused by the other.  If someone hits you, they will do it again, for they have lost respect for you, if not love.  No relationship is worth that, and no child deserves to grow up being abused or watching someone else be harmed.

I talk with my kids about this on occasion.  It’s a hard subject to discuss, but it’s important.  In a way, it’s close to how I talk to them about being harmed by strangers.  Fight to escape, get out, get help.  Don’t ever start a confrontation, but find a way to end it, preferably without getting hurt.  That goes for any abuse, physical or otherwise.  Nobody has the right to torment or hurt those that love them, and sometimes the only solution is to get away.

It’s easier said than done on both counts.  Like I said, your significant other knows you, probably better than you know yourself.  If they’re of a mind to push all of the buttons at once, they can almost seem to dare you to lash out.  This you can never do.  Walk away, cool off, take the kids, and get out until everyone is rational again.  No short-term advantage in a conflict is worth the damage that momentary abuse will bring.  Leaving an abusive partner, if even for the time it takes to look for help, is gut-wrenchingly difficult.  Someone who harms you physically is likely to have laid a foundation of emotional and psychological abuse, and the strength to get out and get help may be difficult to find.  But there is at least one person in everyone’s life that is there for you to reach out to, to hold you up and shield you while you heal.  If you need them, find them, and they will help.

Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.  — Apocalypse Now

There are times when I have to do something that is unpleasant, but am eager to get it over with.  I don’t mean getting-your-shots unpleasant.  More like I’m-going-to-remember-this-forever unpleasant.  I guess we all do.  It’s usually something that’s going to change my life, but is really going to suck.  One of these things that had a good outcome was the birth of my children.  Yes, I knew all of the safety and advantages a woman has when she gives birth at a modern facility, but there’s still that experience of watching the woman I love writhe in pain, not to mention that there is still a pretty good risk of losing one or both of my most beloved people.  Yeah, I have no idea how painful and scary that was for the woman, but even if I’m along for the ride, it’s still scary and stressful.

But, like I used to get told a lot, that’s why I get paid the big bucks.  Most things that fall into this category are going to happen whether or not you’re ready, so it is best to be prepared for them.  Knowing everything I can beforehand, having an idea of what I will do before, during, and after the event, and keeping my head go a long way.

Still, chomping at the bit for something you know is going to suck because you just want it over with does seem strange, don’t you think?

[Oddball sees that the bridge he wants to cross is intact and is pleased with himself]
Oddball: It’s still up!
[a plane flies over the bridge and bombs it… direct hit]
Oddball: No it ain’t.

— Kelly’s Heroes

Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.  In my life, it’s tended to be “Don’t burn your bridges before you cross them.”  Keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, watch for things that will change your conditions, and always be flexible when it’s time to plan and re-plan.

If you can’t do it with one bullet, don’t do it at all.  — The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

My friend Freiheit has, on occasion, gotten behind me at a shoot and yelled “Miss faster!”.  It’s a reminder to slow down, look at the front sight, and control the trigger.  Getting frustrated, jerking the trigger rapidly, and flinging lead willy nilly downrange does little good.  Take a breath, concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing, and start squeezing the trigger once everything else lines up.

I finally got some sense knocked into me. And I’ve got the bump to prove it.  — The Lion King

There isn’t a part of my body that doesn’t have a scar on it somewhere.  Maybe it’s the criss-cross of rake and hoe scars in my scalp from when I was 6 and decided to get into a fight with the neighbor kid.  Maybe it’s the big, long one I got as a teenager when I drove the heel of my foot up into a bathroom tub faucet.  No matter what, there’s a story for each of them, and a lesson I should have learned.

The reason there’s a criss-cross scar on my head is that I didn’t learn from the first time I got smacked upside the head with a garden implement.  Once the stitches were out and my mother wasn’t looking, I went back for more.  That is when I learned that unarmed fighting against someone who has a weapon sucks.

The scar on my foot taught me to always lock the bathroom door, especially when I’ve been playing ambush with a younger sibling and they might think it’s fun to ambush me in the shower.

Life is going to smack you upside the head sometimes, and it’s going to leave a mark.  Your job is to recognize when it happens, and learn from it.  There’s no shame in taking a knock the first time something happens.  The shame comes from not learning from the lump.

Lucas Deranian: Look as far as you can see. Mr. Bolt owns everything in sight.
Tia Malone: Well, I can see the sky.

— Escape to Witch Mountain

The cliché “Money can’t buy happiness” gets beaten up a lot, mainly because of all the things that money can buy that have the ability to bring happiness.  Poverty certainly doesn’t guarantee happiness, but neither does it guarantee misery.

How you feel does not come from what you own, either how much or how little.  The things that make me happy, truly happy, cost relatively little, but are the most precious to me.  They are things that I cannot buy in any store, but any attempt to take them from me would trigger a visceral and violent protection instinct.

I don’t mind having one eye. It just means I can focus on one thing at a time.  — 9

When you’re doing something, then do that one thing.  You can’t watch a movie and drive.  You really can’t talk on the phone and drive properly.  Concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing, and when you’re done, move onto the next thing.  Doing more than one thing at once cheats you out of your effort.

This is ridiculous. It’s crazy. I feel like I’m babysitting, except I’m not getting paid. — The Goonies

I hate herding cats, and I loathe committees.  If I wanted to grow old and gray waiting for people to make a decision or act on decisions they finally make, I would have stayed in government.  If you need to be in charge, take charge.   If you are not in charge, do your tasks, give your input, and get on with it!

Welcome to Chicago.This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide. — The Untouchables

Corruption is a fact of life, no matter where you live.  In a large portion of humanity, getting business done requires the exchange of bribes and favors.  I’ve been in places and among people where corruption meant shorting some to help friends.  Those who can’t pay or have no favors to return in exchange for what is rightly theirs are frozen out and suffer.

What makes this possible is when someone in the government has the power to stop you from doing business if you don’t play the game.  When we increase the power of the government, we increase the likelihood that that power will be abused.  The larger, more intrusive the government gets, the dirtier it gets.  That can mean that the beat cop can force citizens to pay bribes for ‘protection’.  It can also mean that the power of the government can be used to harm and intimidate whole swaths of the citizenry.

I’m not saying that a smaller, less intrusive government would be cleaner than what we have now, because people will always be as venal as they have always been.  Petty bureaucrats will always find a way to manipulate the system to their own advantage.  But when they have a smaller reach, their corruption will only be able to spread so far before their influence runs out.

 But, Wally, don’t you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable too, but comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility.  — My Dinner With Andre

Having things go too easily for too long is a trap.  Not everything needs to be a struggle, but if nothing is a struggle, I stop learning and I stop trying.  I don’t want to be pulling my hair out every day, but I need a challenge to keep my focus.  Otherwise, the littlest distraction pulls me off to some tangent, and I don’t get done what needs doing.

You can expand this to society as a whole, I think.  When things are going well and everyone is in a comfortable situation, we find things to squabble about and cheap entertainment to occupy our time.  When we aren’t worried about some common problem or goal, we quibble about how people speak.  When we aren’t worried about putting food on the table, we find ways to entertain ourselves that usually involve watching television shows about the trials and tribulations of people who deserve everything that happens to them.