Blight

By the time I finish my first cup of coffee, I’ve sat down at the computer and started thinking about a blog post. That’s the typical flow of events. Today is a bit different. Last night I was reading a story that kicked off a sudden bout of nasty recall. Although I regularly mine my past for components to cycle into posts, I don’t often get stuck in the emotions of the past. But last night, it seemed beyond my control. A memory came floating up that set off waves of anger and hate. For me, utilizing the past is a way of understanding it, pointing out the absurdities, and even recasting events or people. Some of what I write is esoteric or absurd; I like the absurd.

But I’d not choose to recast or utilize what floated up last night. It was a reminder that sometimes people are not just casually cruel but deliberately cruel and hateful. In my case, I’d only be comfortable in saying that a group of colleagues maliciously slandered me to gain something that I had earned and that they had no claim upon. They got a scant return on their effort, but their activities left me wounded for years. My feelings for them can’t be described as affection; hate would be a more useful word.

Casual cruelty, I understand. You lash out in anger at a comment or overreact to a situation. It’s the carefully plotted maliciousness of some people that I do not understand. It’s the torturous twists the mind must go through to justify the actions.
I see this as the root of most vicious prejudices. Someone else has or wants something. But you feel it’s yours through your innate superiority, class, ethnicity, religion, race, or college degree. You feel incensed that they’d dare seek your prize.

Instead of using their energies positively, they agonize, twist, and mutilate reason with hate and lies. They especially find ways to justify thoughts and deeds.
I see this as sociopathy, a narcissism of the soul, a blight.

I don’t think there is any easy way back to the light once you muddy yourself this way. I remember something Tom Paine said: “Character is much easier kept than recovered.”