Hate me! Get away from me! Don't stand so close. What gives you the right to speak to me? I think much of this madness was always just below the surface.
Do you also have relatives who barely disguise their contempt? As a child you blamed yourself; as an adult you adjust your lens on the world and tell yourself, 'some people are just like that', when you have known all along that they are seconds away from screaming in your face.
Have you dropped a friend because of their sniping, wondering, 'if you don't like me, why are you hanging around?' You blame those hurtful words on wine and push them out of your mind. They still call you up and, despite your better judgement, you say yes.
Civility demands that we rub along with all types but it goes deeper than that. Parents hate their children for many reasons, particularly mothers growing envious of daughters as a therapist once told us. They may dedicate years to destroying their children's marriages by creating complex realities to confuse and destabilize their adult offspring. Often we prefer not to know but know we must. By trying to adjust to someone who bears us malice, we damage ourselves.
Well, it's out in the open now. Walking in the woods with barely a path to follow, people still cross to the other side of an imaginary road. Neighbors turn away, pull their children from yours and, worse, snitch on you when there is no danger to themselves. Or freak out at your pets for being... animals! Who's the wild animal now?
The prison lockdown has pushed many to breaking point, challenging their own grip on reality and that is understandable. How many truly empathetic people respond in this way, however? Does a self-aware person become a bug-eyed beadle croaking demented at passers-by? I think not. Is it all just the stress or had we already adapted to an environment that was increasingly hostile to mutual reliance and living together? At the first opportunity to burst the shackles of civility we have revealed our true identity as rival scavengers in a barren land.
Uncharitable, moi? Perhaps. I remember when cellular phones became commonplace. I was convinced that more people were talking to themselves, pretending to have a conversation. With time I concluded, yes, people did indeed feel free to have those inner chats aloud. "Yeah, walking down the street. The street. Just passed the pharmacy. No, not raining today. On my way home. Not there yet. Another few minutes." They really were talking to themselves, even if there was a live person on the other end, whom I suspect often was not. In a similar way another mass change to society has scraped away a bit of veneer.
We hide behind language but it gives us away. Life is safer than ever but we need the concept of danger, so we've expanded the phrase to 'potentially dangerous'. Doesn't the word dangerous already imply potential, as in 'could be danger'. So we have the danger of dangerousness. It may only have the potential of potential, latent potential, but now it has dangerously-you-never-can-be-too-sure-potentiality. Raise your arms and go... wooooooo!
Dat is niet normaal, as my neighbor in Den Haag used to say. Something is wrong and it is not just a reaction to the lockdown.
Do you also have relatives who barely disguise their contempt? As a child you blamed yourself; as an adult you adjust your lens on the world and tell yourself, 'some people are just like that', when you have known all along that they are seconds away from screaming in your face.
Have you dropped a friend because of their sniping, wondering, 'if you don't like me, why are you hanging around?' You blame those hurtful words on wine and push them out of your mind. They still call you up and, despite your better judgement, you say yes.
Civility demands that we rub along with all types but it goes deeper than that. Parents hate their children for many reasons, particularly mothers growing envious of daughters as a therapist once told us. They may dedicate years to destroying their children's marriages by creating complex realities to confuse and destabilize their adult offspring. Often we prefer not to know but know we must. By trying to adjust to someone who bears us malice, we damage ourselves.
Well, it's out in the open now. Walking in the woods with barely a path to follow, people still cross to the other side of an imaginary road. Neighbors turn away, pull their children from yours and, worse, snitch on you when there is no danger to themselves. Or freak out at your pets for being... animals! Who's the wild animal now?
The prison lockdown has pushed many to breaking point, challenging their own grip on reality and that is understandable. How many truly empathetic people respond in this way, however? Does a self-aware person become a bug-eyed beadle croaking demented at passers-by? I think not. Is it all just the stress or had we already adapted to an environment that was increasingly hostile to mutual reliance and living together? At the first opportunity to burst the shackles of civility we have revealed our true identity as rival scavengers in a barren land.
Uncharitable, moi? Perhaps. I remember when cellular phones became commonplace. I was convinced that more people were talking to themselves, pretending to have a conversation. With time I concluded, yes, people did indeed feel free to have those inner chats aloud. "Yeah, walking down the street. The street. Just passed the pharmacy. No, not raining today. On my way home. Not there yet. Another few minutes." They really were talking to themselves, even if there was a live person on the other end, whom I suspect often was not. In a similar way another mass change to society has scraped away a bit of veneer.
We hide behind language but it gives us away. Life is safer than ever but we need the concept of danger, so we've expanded the phrase to 'potentially dangerous'. Doesn't the word dangerous already imply potential, as in 'could be danger'. So we have the danger of dangerousness. It may only have the potential of potential, latent potential, but now it has dangerously-you-never-can-be-too-sure-potentiality. Raise your arms and go... wooooooo!
Dat is niet normaal, as my neighbor in Den Haag used to say. Something is wrong and it is not just a reaction to the lockdown.
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