The Scorpion and the Abyss

If the good guys aren't willing to sometimes stoop to the same level as shameless crooks, who have never once in their lives played fair, to show them that we too are capable of playing dirty — and that even without practice, we can beat them at their own game — evil will always have the long-term advantage.

María Camila Osorio Sepúlveda was emotionally abused as a child by a father who is a 'grandiose' narcissist. From him she inherited the genetic component of the disorder, a latent potential that was nourished by that abuse.

She was then influenced as a teenager by his sister, her aunt Milena (at a minimum, perhaps there were other destructive influences too): a paisa who was also a prostitute that excelled at playing men (and even serviced narcos).

A nuanced understanding of the current situation requires acknowledging that it is not entirely her fault she is the way she is.

But anyone who has been victimized by her knows in the deepest part of their being that there is more than enough free will in the equation to despise her with the most incandescent rage.

And even if that were not the case, at this point in her story, it no longer matters who's to blame: she simply is what she is.

As a society, we are addicted to telling ourselves 'pretty lies'. We love hearing stories of people with dark pasts who overcame them and transformed their lives. Nobody likes to talk about the people who are broken and simply stay broken; but, in fact, that is precisely what usually happens.

And because we talk about one thing and not the other, we inevitably develop a cognitive bias that leads us to overestimate the odds of redemption.

Even if it were possible to, as Colombians joke, "rehabilitate a whore" — this talented sociopath is not the one who defies the odds.

Whoever dares to touch the flame — to get involved with the woman who singlehandedly challenges the premise of feminism — will discover for himself or herself this essential truth of human nature, a principle so reliable and predictive that we might as well consider it a law of physics: sooner or later, every whore bites the hand that feeds her.

Each new frog the scorpion seduces into carrying it across the river, persuading it with its logical explanation of the incentives at play: mutually assured destruction, and who then, halfway across, decides to sting the frog anyway: will discover for itself the answer to the question it screams as they both drown.

Perhaps I myself became something monstrous in my pursuit of justice and revenge. But sometimes the only way to defeat a monster is to become monstrous yourself (my apologies to Nietzsche, but I think the solitary German would approve of Geralt of Rivia).

At the end of the day, sometimes we have to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: there are people who, had they never existed, the world would be a better place.