We hear a lot about murders of various kinds, sometimes even seeing them through a visual medium, albeit fictional. One thing I think we can all reach consensus on is that to murder is to have a complex mind. One may use foolish, impulsive, evil or any other adjective, but the word complex has a certain ring to it that I like. It encompasses all aspects of our brain and body together-be it the good or the bad, to make one messy, internally fragmented whole. When one researches on this topic, the first thing that pops up is serial killers, even though I used the word murderer while searching, not serial killer. It speaks a lot about how we view our killers, or basically how we group them. We have serial killers on one hand, the people who've killed more than twice. These are very interesting to research as you find one thing here that any analyst loves-patterns. In the obscure art that is predicting violence, serial killers are the genre that analysts think they understand the best, purely because most of them have this recurring trend of trauma of some kind, as well as "anti social behaviour". Now down to the hard analytics-nearly 50 percent of serial killers have experienced psychological abuse, with 36 percent having undergone physical abuse and 26 percent experiencing childhood sexual abuse. This goes on to underscore the significant role of trauma in shaping the trajectory of the lives of these people. So what about the other 50 percent? Studies also show that the list of serial killers with perfectly normal childhoods is long. Bundy, Dahmer and Rader are just a few such famous names. Going down to the second type of murderers-the ones driven by impulse. These are people who are predominantly "good", but this goodness is overshadowed forever by that momentary violence. A lot of us are impulsive, and commit rash acts in the moment, but this is different in one way. Here, there is a combination of rashness as well as external environment. It may be an abusive upbringing, a prolonged period of loneliness or anything else. Sometimes, these things just get buried by us in the moment as we try to convince ourselves that we're not alone, that we matter, until some event occurs which just sets off all these feelings we've wanted to vent out for a long period of time. In most cases, it makes us fight with people, but it's usually harmless, while in some rare cases, these fights escalate, and then our self-defence instincts along with all that pent up animosity kicks in and well, anything can happen from there. An act as heinous as this scar us for life, either make us drown in the pool of regret, or leading us to think that we have the power to take life, to end it. That power, which we so often reserve for God only, guess what, we have it too. This then becomes a craving, almost like a routine. Sometimes once you've tasted power, it feels like something you've been denied your entire life, and something you just must obtain. It’s then that a taste itself is never enough, and we want the entire plate. The most important takeaway for me from this is how almost half of our serial killers had no trauma. These people may have been lonely or even shunned, but most of them would have never thought their animosity towards people would manifest in such a manner. Feelings of loss, regret, revenge, hatred and such seem harmless, but when these aren't understood and dealt with properly, then slowly, steadily, as these feelings fester, it leads to a murder-not of anyone else in the world, but of ourselves, our happiness and everything that makes life enjoyable. Hence, it’s up to us to ensure we don't let ourselves get consumed with pessimism, and yet somehow stay grounded, because in life, sometimes all it takes is a moment.