Photo by Pixabay
Understanding revenge can be tricky, full of twists and turns like a subplot from a genuinely excellent TV series.
In Vincent G. Bivona Jr.’s Blood of Deception, revenge is not only a motive; it’s one of the book’s central themes. Vincent’s book about revenge centers around Dak’tari and her adventure of wanting to exact dark vengeance. Readers will feel conflicted about who will win and who they want to triumph.
But what exactly is revenge, and why do we feel satisfied when we follow through with it? That is what we’ll be talking about it today. So buckle up, and let’s learn about revenge!
What is Revenge, and Why is Understanding Revenge Important?
Revenge is the desire to exact payback for injustice or pain received at someone else’s hands or decisions. It is ultimately an act of hurting or harming someone. Although it’s the inspiration for countless TV dramas and epic films, should it also be a significant part of our everyday life?
No matter how much we detest to admit it, everyone experiences the powerful emotion of vengeance at some point. And today, we want to delve into revenge’s mysterious, dark, and secretive psychology.
The desire to get even against those who wronged us is wired into our souls. We need to understand the feeling of retaliation is such a strong one. Additionally, knowing ourselves better aids in understanding it.
A Brief Science Explanation of Revenge
What transpires in the cerebral cortex when someone exacts revenge was the focus of a team of Swiss researchers. Here’s what they discovered:
1. Individuals recently mistreated during a game within the lab were subjected to brain scans.
2. The individuals were then allowed to exact revenge, and the researchers monitored the victim’s brain activity for an entire minute as they considered their options.
3. The researchers observed that the caudate nucleus had an immediate surge in brain activity. This area of the brain processes the sensations of rewards.
In these instances, revenge is something our brains think is rewarding. One could sum all it up by saying that revenge, in that instance, is rewarding. But the next question now needs to be asked, “Does revenge never stop feeling rewarding?” Questions that must be asked for our journey of understanding revenge.
The Long-Term Consequences of Revenge
Vincent’s book about revenge has a character chasing her vengeance for a long time. A novel with a similar theme of having a central femme fatale character is also present in Alina’s Revenge by Greg Van Arsdale.
We frequently think that gaining payback will make us feel better and that taking revenge is a way to relieve our emotions. Retaliation is commonly portrayed in movies as a solution to right a wrong. However, getting even actually has the opposite impact.
Even if the first few seconds seem satisfying within the brain’s machinations, psychological researchers have discovered that seeking revenge makes the original transgression seem worse for longer.
This means that revenge frequently produces a series of retaliation instead of exacting justice.
What Should We Do About Revenge?
Revenge causes your emotional wounds to reopen and get worse. Despite the temptation to punish the wrongdoer, you harm yourself since you cannot recover. With that said, is there anything we can do about revenge?
Fortunately, we can handle revenge by:
• Putting our emotionally charged thoughts into our goals.
• Putting our emotionally charged thoughts to work, making us grind and hustle for the better.
• Putting our emotionally charged thoughts towards our mental and physical growth.
By picturing yourself achieving your goals, you can stimulate the reward region of your brain. This causes the focus to shift from your perpetrator to you and your objective, which is precisely where it should be.
Understanding revenge can ultimately help us grow as an individual. And just like in Vincent’s book about revenge, we will realize that obsessing over revenge is not good.
Always try to be better and stronger than your desire to dish out vengeance. And if you wish to read Vincent G. Bivona Jr.’s Blood of Deception, click here so you can visit his website!