I. 

Scapegoat: a word with meaning that carries within it, the colossal weight of misfortune. It is an impossible weight that buckles and immobilizes the unfortunate carrier. Sedimented inside that misfortune is an engrossing defeat and helplessness. You become an island. You are on shaky ground. The weather above is grating and the surrounding waters threaten to consume the island you’ve been made to become. A corrosive light has exposed and cornered you. Now, you are without any defense.  For each person who carries this unbearable weight, there is another out there relieved of that very weight. Or at least they live in the illusion of this same knowledge: a knowledge that obscures those seen as undoubtedly good or those deserving of punishment (often unmerited) and all its precipitous attachments. In its biblical roots, ancient Israelites used a goat as a sacrificial stand-in for transferring the sins they wished to keep at bay and look past. By doing so, they absolved themselves from any associated shame, guilt, and the task of confronting the origins of that very guilt.