The Saboteur Just Got Job a Promotion

AI image created by Taina in Midjourney

This is an imagined conversation between The Boss at I/Thou Inc. and one of the employees, Saboteur.

The Boss:  Saboteur, good morning, please have a seat.  We’d like to review your contributions here at I/Thou Inc.  I see that you have a lot of experience in the Creative Department.  You built a whole mechanism around Harm that has been quite successful.  Can you tell me a little about your projects in the Creative Department?

Saboteur:  For one, I developed systems that take emotional pain such as grief, rage, or shame, and first direct them inward, creating effective self-doubt, hatred and harm.  Then surplus pain could be directed to relationships outside the self, creating a conflict feedback loop that perpetually regenerates.  It protects the user from feeling overwhelming states and also prevents them from taking too much responsibility.

The Boss:  It’s quite a brilliant mechanism!  I admire the work you’ve done for us here, Saboteur.  Unfortunately I need to inform you that your current position is being terminated.

Saboteur:  Oh! I see.  I don’t know what to say.  I’m shocked - I think my contributions here are important and meaningful.   

The Boss:  I’m sorry, we’ve had to cut many positions that no longer align with the core values of I/Thou.  But we may actually  have a position opening up that would perfectly suit your strengths.  It’s The Destroyer of Systems of Oppression.  You would be trained in a whole new mechanism that connects emotional pain to a defunct aspect of the operating system and dismantles it.  I have a brief demo video, would you like to see it?  One of the new media interns threw it together.  

Saboteur:  Sure! 

(They turn attention to a large computer monitor and ominous music plays.  The video opens with a quote from French Jesuit, scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard De Chardin appearing on the screen.  The quote burns away as if on fire.  Then an overly dramatic voice begins speaking.  Images from nature follow the dialogue.)

“Some day, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love.  And then, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire.”

-De Chardin

I have a confession to make.  I am not creative.  I am destructive.  I am the decay, the vulture, and the forest fire that clears the underbrush.  I am pruning of synapses in the brain.  Decisive rage that initiates necessary change.  I am The Destroyer.  

People fear me, but I go hand-in-hand with Life.  I know the disdain you may feel for me.  Do you think that I am War and Violence and Pain?  These are not me.  These are disembodied Destroyer without a purpose.  

At I/Thou Inc. I work with The Creator to harness the raw materials of your grief, rage, shame and other unrefined states and transform them into Reality.  

Without me, The Timeline becomes a fragmented endless loop of struggle.  

Destroyer 2025 uses cutting edge technologies modeled after systems of nature to completely transform the human architecture.  Raw emotional materials can be composted, recycled, repurposed and completely transformed into creative intelligence.  

Get Destroyer 2025 by I/Thou wherever human connection is found. 

(The video fades out.) 

Saboteur:  Wow, that’s incredible.  What exactly is the output of The Destroyer?

The Boss:  That’s the thing - we only know to a point.  We expect this to aid in the successful creative, emotional, and relational development of the individual and the group.  But the exact outcome is not known, it’s in a stage of development.  Which is why we’d love you to be on board with the project, Saboteur.  

Saboteur:  I’m thrilled and I’d love to work on the project!  

The Boss:  Great, we’ll get you a contract written up for review this week.  Best of luck to you.  

Saboteur:  Thanks for the opportunity, Boss.