I see a woman heading away fast from a man a few metres behind her. I can hear her shoes clicking. She throws fevered panicked glances back at him. Click. Click. Draws her coat up around her shoulders. And I wonder, is she afraid of him simply because he's a man? He is just a man. He is only walking behind her. He is pretty tall and could probably be perceived as threatening. But he doesn't increase his pace to catch her as she keeps increasing her own. And I wonder if she has any understanding of public safety statistics, and the fact that she is more likely to be slaughtered by someone who has kissed her goodnight than a total stranger. Someone who's made her breakfast, and driven her around, fucked her and held her tight. I wonder about these things.

And in all fairness to that tall, potentially fierce man, I am probably the most dangerous person on this street. And it's not that I want to do terrible things and rape and beat or murder anybody. I just like to watch TV. It's just that I could. I could do these things. I sometimes wonder where my feelings went, because I used to be a very sensitive person. I used to cry about wounded puppy dogs and beaten children. I'd watch World Vision ads and sob. I'd get paranoid about all the innocent people in jail and suspect my neighbours were hurting their kids or at least overwatering their plants. I wondered why people had to hurt each other so much, and why they were so cruel. I became an expert on rape and murder and nasty human behavior we're told is uncommon, but it isn't really. I was consumed by the idea that every person is out to beat or stab or attack in some way. The worst did it to their own children. I saw misery absolutely everywhere. And I wanted to help them, these poor, helpless and misguided people. If I could just educate them, surely they'd change? Because people are basically good, aren't they?

So I announced, spanking is linked to increased aggression and less IQ, depression, self hatred and sexual perversion. There are other parenting strategies with more effectiveness and much less risk! Let me introduce them to you. And the parents said, "we're different to those people that really hurt their kids, we do it correctly." And "we never do it in anger", "we have to do it, they would run riot without it", and finally "it's our right". And they raged at me for trying to rip away their god given right to beat their half naked children over their knees. I should just stay out of it, because they were really good parents. And just who did I think I was? My fancy talk about 'cognitive development' and 'child dignity' wasn't going to wash with them.

Next I chose to fight the evils of partner violence. I said, a partner is not an object. You don't get to make up the rules for their mistreatment inside your partnership sphere. If you hit a stranger you go to jail, if you hit your spouse you get a 'no, no' and counseling. You get people citing back your own excuses to you. It must be wonderful for alleviating any potential discomfort. She provoked me. She probably provoked him. She could have left. She could have left, but I'd kill her. What was that? Nothing! You poor, poor dear. And nobody condones these people who hit their girlfriends and boyfriends, but at the same time, it's not really our business. And people quietly defended their right to ignore crimes without strangers. Still others hissed at me that they deserved what they got, and I was a feminist. Nothing else, they just accused me of being a feminist. How dare I? Women already had heaps of rights, and now you want what? Compulsory arrests?

And I was still hopeful, though a little frightened. So people wanted to hit their kids, and most of society didn't want to protrude on the privacy of intimate violence. But I had other avenues. People weren't ready for those changes, but maybe they were too radical? I suppose a progressive society can still tolerate hitting women and children? So I forged on and decided to fight for the rights of endangered forests. And I wanted to be tied to some trees and start a hunger strike but they said it wasn't done that way any more. So we wrote letters to people until our arms hurt. And we drank a lot of coffee and I felt very alive. But then they said; we must fell it, they had better lawyers and more money than us. And I felt sad again. I felt even sadder than after my last two campaigns. I couldn't save the children from their slap happy parents, I couldn't whisk the women away from their nasty men. And in any case, people told me, most people don't want to be saved. And we find your attempts patronizing. So please desist.

I entered a period of deep pain and darkness swirling with children's screams, chainsaws and bleeding whales. I heard the cries of tortured bears and cute skinned animals. I saw starving, flea bitten children everywhere. I breathed in toxic chemicals in China and I felt the overcrowding of Hong Kong pressing into my spine. I felt the whippings of women in Saudi Arabia. I was tied down and suffocating like the souls in asylums. I contracted every cancer. I fought every disease. I felt tears run down my cheeks while I died from a childhood illness. I couldn't walk because I'd hit by a truck, driven by a drunk driver. And I wanted to help them all. There was so much pain. I thought I would drown in it.

And then, the light. I did not feel sad any more. I did not feel heavy, or sick or depressed. I no longer felt angry. It was as if my mind had gone to sleep. And it was a pleasant waking coma that I entered into. I no longer desired to work or write or do anything remotely controversial. I enjoyed painting, and long walks in the park. I took myself to nice restaurants. I read to myself in the bath. I looked at myself and said, you're fine just the way you are.

And I took a night job and most of the time I just feel nice and calm. But sometimes I get this cold feeling. Somewhere in the land mine remnants of my mind. I feel a twitch of criticism. And I look at people who don't value themselves, and I try to imagine it would matter if I killed them.

But I can't really imagine anymore.