Heat of the Moment or Coldness of the Truth?

As Samuel L. Jackson's character in Jurassic Park said, "hold on to your butts!" For the first time since I started this blog a little over 8 months ago, I'm sitting down to write a post with no agenda. That's right, no agenda.

Before we begin today's post, I have a game to play! I got this from Casey's Xanga...here we go:

If you read this, even if I don't speak to you often, you must post a memory of
me. It can be anything you want, it can be good or bad, just so long as it happened. Then post this message to your journal. See what people remember about you.Oh, and if you leave me a memory and post this message to your blog, maybe I'll post one back...

Kind of goofy, but an interesting concept nonetheless. Plus, it provides an excuse to sit and think back on old times...

Enough of that.

A group of us was having a discussion the other day about 'the heat of the moment.' This is a statement which has always bothered me.

I don't know what it is about this statement that aggravates me so, but I just can't stand it. I suppose it's the fact that people use it as an excuse to afford legitimacy to an action which would otherwise be looked down upon by one's peers and often one's self. In other words, people use 'heat of the moment' to explain something that they want to believe has no explanation, when truly the explanation is quite simple and summed up in this fantastic quotation from Bill Clinton: "I did it because I could!" (or 'because I wanted to' or 'because I knew I'd enjoy it' or 'because I couldn't see a reason not to). This poses the question: Can things be better explained by the heat of the moment, or by the coldness of the truth?

This disgusting statement is applied in many court cases which may be considered 'crimes of passion.' While, on a rare occasion, usually in the case of killing somebody in self defense or defense of others, this idea of reacting without thought may be true, for the majority of instances, it is not. It simply is not.

Although much thought may not have been applied to the decision at hand, at least some thought was. Mary did not have consensual sex with her boyfriend 'on accident in the heat of the moment.' No. This is simply wrong. At some point she, and her boyfriend, had to make a decision to allow the situation to advance to the point of no return. At some point, something had to 'click' in her (and his) head and say, 'are you sure you want to do this?' Although the response may have come quickly with little deliberation, an affirmative answer to the question posed by one's conscience had to have been derived. That's the cold truth!

TODAY'S MORAL: I don't think that there is such a thing as 'in the heat of the moment.' I stand firm in my belief that things can get out of hand with little thought or realization, but in the end I truly believe that a conscious yes or no decision HAS to be (or have been) made for a situation to develop. I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this way...thoughts?