Dexter

How do I love Dexter, let me count the ways

Dexter, a TV series adaptation and series of books by Jeff Lindsay based on a central character named Dexter Morgan, and the screen version is vying for the spot of my favourite TV series ever made.

I generally do not like violence. I find it unnecessary in many shows, and despise sports like boxing, where people inflict pain on others with little or no purpose. Yet Dexter, in its sometimes vividly graphic way is neither offensive or disgusting to me.

Perhaps it's the "code" that Dexter operates under- that the people killed must be "bad"- thus making him an antihero. Or because it allows me to live somewhat vicariously through the character and fantasise of the justice I would exact on those who have wronged me.

I relate to the character in many other ways- from his deep inability to understand "normal" people and woefully awkward attempts to appear to be one of them, to his recurrent failure in relationships, intimate or otherwise.

But it's the innate humanity and reflections of my own experience with depression that takes the appreciation to another level. The following quotes have exactly reflected my own thoughts on the world at times:

"I'm not sure what I am. I just know there's something dark in me. I hide it. I certainly don't talk about it, but it's there always, this Dark Passenger.  "

"I'm empty. But I found a way to make it less bottomless. Pretend. You pretend the feelings are there, for the world. For the people around you. Who knows, maybe one day they will be."

“Whatever made me the way I am left me hollow, empty inside, unable to feel. It doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm quite sure most people fake an awful lot of everyday human contact. I just fake it all. I fake it very well, and the feelings are never there.”   

"I wonder if darkness is defined by light- if so darkness can't exist on its own. There must, by definition be light somewhere, waiting to be found."