the odd chronicle


February 9th 2006

copyright don oddy

~ poison people ~

Some people! We all exclaim from time to time. Some people can be wonderful and some can cause us to feel quite ill, unwell in their company.

In fact people can make us feel anything if we let them. We usually let good people in our lives make us feel good. And the negative and less helpful fall away and move out of our lives.

Other people’s feelings can impose themselves on us and make our feelings up or down. I was in conversation with a stranger who held the most extreme views I have heard in many years. Face to face, I could not escape their horrid and corrupt assumptions about race and religions, people I know and their aggressive hate of most everything in their life.

I looked at their hate, it was their hate. For when I considered their views and their intolerance, I had nothing to hate, and nothing in common with their outlook. I wondered how a picture of the world was made so bad and so badly. I wondered where this false and prejudiced view had come. It had no truth in it, it had nothing to be worthy in it. And I looked at the person.

The person, unhappy, sad beyond belief, making all their problems the fault of others. Putting their own losses down to others taking their opportunity. Making their lot the fault of anyone but themselves.

So poisonous was this encounter I felt abused and worn down. I wondered what I might do. I found no point in challenging this person there and then. I found no merit trying to reform their outlook, not there and then. I found there was little a single person might achieve in challenging this outrageous set of prejudice and values.

Where feelings run high and over our right thinking, we encounter the best of ourselves and the worst of ourselves. In extremes we can accomplish the impossible and weather great emotional storms. And we can encounter intransigence as great as our own.

This persons hate was theirs, stirring and ripping through their peace of mind. This perons grudge was grudging just them, not causing pain in anyone but themselves. These awful feelings were theirs not mine. Their twisted outlook inside them and not me.

This person was powerless over their outlook and most everything in their lives. Full of resentment and hate. This person was left with no understanding of their choices and their part in their outlook and life. This person had lost their way and their opportunity. And this person could and would not listen to reason. At sea with themselves and the world, a person so lost beyond belief and their reason.

Maybe one day may come when eyes may be opened and truth might come close. As with all feelings hidden and let out very rarely, uninformed and raw to the outside world, we wonder how a person lives with this poison inside them. Sadly nowhere near as long as the peaceful soul, moving across this earth experiencing with wonderment its joys and sadness in their right measure.