Roma's Speech - Glengarry Glenross
I recently re-watched Glengarry Glenross, an excellent film from so many points of view (although you do wonder what Jonathan Pryce was doing in it) - anyway, I thought that the character of Roma (played by Al Pacino) is in one of the few truly Satanic heroes played out on screen. Roma is charismatic, successful, generous to his friends, ruthless in dealing with fools, and has a philosophy which is unafraid of seeing all things as they are, regardless of how society may view them, as depicted in his 'You ever take a dump made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours?' speech. This speech (excerpt below) concludes with depicting an approach to living which many Satanists would claim as their own.
There's an absolute morality? Maybe. And then what? If you think there is, then be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don't think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes.
I won't live in it. That's me. You ever take a dump made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours...?
Or a piss...? A great meal fades in reflection. Everything else gains. You know why? 'Cause it's only food. This shit we eat, it keeps us going. But it's only food. The great fucks that you may have had. What do you remember about them?
I don't know. For me, I'm saying, what is is, it's probably not the orgasm. Some broads, forearms on your neck, something her eyes did.
There was a sound she made...or, me, lying, in the, I'll tell you: me lying in bed; the next day she brought me café au lait. She gives me a cigarette, my balls feel like concrete. Eh? What I'm saying,what is our life?
(pause)
It's looking forward or it's looking back. And that's our life.
That's it. Where is the moment?
(pause)
And what is it that we're afraid of?
Loss. What else?
(pause)
The bank closes. We get sick, my wife died on a plane, the stock market collapsed...the house burnt down...what of these happen...?
None on 'em. We worry anyway.
What does this mean? I'm not secure. How can I be secure?
(pause)
Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what's beyond all measure? That's a sickness. That's a trap. There is no measure. Only greed. How can we act?
The right way, we would say, to deal with this: "There is a one-in- a-million chance that so and so will happen...Fuck it, it won't happen to me..." No. We know that's not the right way I think.
(pause)
We say the correct way to deal with this is "There is a one-in-so-and-so chance this will happen...God protect me. I am powerless, let it not happen to me..." But no to that.
I say. There's something else.
What is it? "If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it, just as I do today with what draws my concern today." I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself. And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day
arrives that I need a reserve, [a] odds are that I have it, and [b]the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear.
(pause)
According to the dictates of my mind.
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