Love in my life has been like rainbows: I could see it's beauty but is was never within my grasp...
According to memes I've seen on facebook, I'm supposed to be nice to people with unseeable diseases like autism and diabeats or however you spell that shit. Whatever you know what I mean. Anyways what about unseen emotional scars? They are actually pretty comparable.
Let's say that there was a Pop Warner football game going on, and a little kid broke his leg. Even if he had the most uninvolved, barely caring parents, they would at the very least take him to the emergency room.
Could you imagine if you saw a kid break his leg and his parents yelled at him, "suck it up!! Quit being a bitch!!" Even if he tried to do that, it would only make his injury worse. A broken bone requires medical attention. There's simply no getting around that.
There
was also no getting around Roger McGully. We had to show my X-ray for
the insurance claim, I want to see his birth cirtificate!! 7 years old
my ass!!!
Some peoples' broken bones are not in their legs, they're in their
hearts and brains. And sometimes it's not a broken bone, but rather a
stress fracture. Which means people can function in society, but break
under pressure due to cracks under the surface.
And in the same way that you cannot will yourself into healing a broken leg, there are some emotional wounds that cannot be willed away either. I remember when the shootings in Columbine took place. What those kids did was obviously evil. But even so, I could kind of sympathize with where they were coming from.
What leads to such senseless violence? Simply put: escalation. Imagine you woke up in the morning and saw your, spouse/parent/roommate whatever the case is, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. You say "morin'." They don't respond. In fact, they don't even look at you.
And in the same way that you cannot will yourself into healing a broken leg, there are some emotional wounds that cannot be willed away either. I remember when the shootings in Columbine took place. What those kids did was obviously evil. But even so, I could kind of sympathize with where they were coming from.
What leads to such senseless violence? Simply put: escalation. Imagine you woke up in the morning and saw your, spouse/parent/roommate whatever the case is, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. You say "morin'." They don't respond. In fact, they don't even look at you.
Maybe they didn't hear you, you think to yourself. "Hey, how did you sleep last night?" you ask in a louder voice to make sure they hear you this time. Again you get no response; not even a non verbal reaction of any kind. Is she mad at me? You ask yourself.
Then you start to get pissed. "What's a matter? Why are you ignoring me??" you say in a raised voice. Still no response whatsoever. Now you start yelling, "quit fucking with me! It's too early for this shit! You hear me??" Again, no response.
You walk over to them, put your hands on their shoulders, and start shaking the shit out of them. Their body moves accordingly but their face makes no acknowledgement of your presence. You start slapping them, thinking one of you has gone crazy.
It's a plausible scenario of how you would escalate from speaking, to yelling, to getting physical and that's after only a few minutes of being ignored. Imagine going a life time without being loved. Like a broken bone, a loveless life has it's irreversible side affects if not given proper attention.
Some people hear about inner pain and like the parents in the above story, say "suck it up! Quit being a bitch!" But what if they were one of the victims at Columbine? Is that what they would yell at the shooters? Or would they instead say something along the lines of, "put the gun down, let's talk about your problems. We can help you!"
But why wait until it's too late to give someone the attention they so desperately need? Ironic how the more help someone needs the less we want to give it to them. I guess it's because our instincts tell us not to like jerks, weirdos, and outcasts. In a sense we have less to gain from them than we have to gain from strong, popular people.
What makes us human though, or at least good humans, is to rise above our instincts as Jesus taught us when human decency requires it. You have to remember what it is that make us jerks in the first place. It's a tough world out there. You have to be strong, and vigilant against people who will try to take advantage of you, or hurt you for various reasons.
Your home however, family, and friends can be a refuge. There you are encouraged to grow, loved for who you are, and make connections with others that will help you develop into a healthy, well adjusted functioning member of society. But what if you didn't have family, friends, or even a home? Take a look at the picture below:
I hated myself after I took this picture. Not gonna say why -.-
The cookies arranged in a circle represent groups such as family and friends. The yellow part of those cookies is the soft love they can expose to their inner circles. The black part represents the hard callousness they develop when clashing with other groups, people with different agendas and morals. (Not saying black people are bad and asians are good, I just happened to find black and yellow cookies that were the same size and shape.)
The lone cookie in the middle has no family and no friends. He is not part of any group. All he knows is callousness. The Doors nailed it with their lyrics "People are strange, when you're a stranger." People do in fact seem wicked when you're unwanted.
It doesn't mean they really are wicked. It's just the perspective you have when you look at the world from a lone standpoint as does our black cookie in the middle there. Now it's not to say that he hasn't benefited from society.
He might receive free education, free meals at school, basic protection from the law. But that's all procedural elements similar to what is provided to cattle. That is no substitute for love. It's not that people don't give us a chance, but the problem is they give us a chance to be what we are not.
When you meet a black cookie and you say to yourself, "I can't wait to see this person's yellowy goodness," you might never see it because there's a chance it doesn't exist. They might actually be black all around. But still be kind to us jerks, weirdos, freaks, socially awkward/painfully shy types. Remember that we became heartless in the same way you became loving: we were surrounded by it.
It doesn't mean they really are wicked. It's just the perspective you have when you look at the world from a lone standpoint as does our black cookie in the middle there. Now it's not to say that he hasn't benefited from society.
He might receive free education, free meals at school, basic protection from the law. But that's all procedural elements similar to what is provided to cattle. That is no substitute for love. It's not that people don't give us a chance, but the problem is they give us a chance to be what we are not.
When you meet a black cookie and you say to yourself, "I can't wait to see this person's yellowy goodness," you might never see it because there's a chance it doesn't exist. They might actually be black all around. But still be kind to us jerks, weirdos, freaks, socially awkward/painfully shy types. Remember that we became heartless in the same way you became loving: we were surrounded by it.
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