Personal ramblings on whatever makes the news and shakes my fancy. Reviews on stuff I have bought or used or experienced, and observations on people I have had the fortune to meet and life's epiphanies that have impacted my development and has made me ME.
Most of us have probably admonished by someone or the other (usually mom) for being unnecessarily critical of someone we may know (or even met in passing).
Yes, even when we are convinced that they deserve it for some slight that we have had to suffer... NO... especially for some slight that we have had to suffer.
“Don't say anything, if you have nothing good to say!” Or something along those lines was the preferred mantra that we were asked to follow.
In most circumstances that is good advice. It's better for the Zen of all concerned; after all not everyone deserves our critical appraisement or an opportunity to bask in our holier-than-thou opinion or ourselves.
[Unless of course the 'us' in this equation happens to be a woman and the 'them' happens to be a man – there are probably different rules for that situation. But as your blogger is (un)fortunately a man, I am not familiar with the underlining rules in such circumstances.]
In my estimation death brings out the best and then the worst in a lot of people. I have been commenting on the two high-profile deaths last month October – that of Steve Jobs and then Muammar Gaddafi.
The media was filled by reports, anecdotes and factoids that were flamboyant in its praise for Jobs as it was in its disdain for Gaddafi.
Then a few days go by and the frenzy dissipates into a trickle, suddenly the reports, anecdotes and factoids in the media are no longer as rosy or rabid as they once were.
Jobs is being portrayed more and more as a dictator and a hard man to get along with; someone who bullied his way to getting what he wanted, and in the way he wanted it.
Suddenly there are reports on Gaddafi's benevolence.
This has been a week of events that I feel strains my belief that there is a humanity in all of us; a humanity that makes us human (and not something less).
Two events in particular have been thoroughly disturbing.
The first is the murder in cold blood of Muammar Gaddafi – who was a tired, broken man begging for mercy when he was eventually captured. That anyone could brutally murder a helpless man who had surrendered to his captor's good heart is beyond me.
Granted Gaddafi was less that merciful of his detractors and perhaps was due what was meted to him. Just because he was less than human does not give his captors the same license – after all a man cannot still be a man if he subsequently chooses to bite the dog that has bitten him.
There is much commonality at the core between the current riots in London and a incident of mob violence that occurred in Noakhali, Bangladesh.
True the extent of damages and the fatalities in the UK are much graver than that in Bangladesh – which left only one person dead. However, both incidents pay homage to the atrocities of police indifference and a long marginalised and under served populace.
The incident in Noakhali where a young man, labeled a 'robber' by the police, was dragged out of the police van by the police themselves to allow for mob justice (while they watched from the sidelines), seems little more than mindless violence and a increasingly recurring moment that shows that there is a very thin line between the humane and and the brutal.
As I work I usually have the radio playing in the background and sometimes a song or a snippet of news catches my attention.
Very recently a song by Human League (remember them?) titled 'Human,' got me thinking...
I loved the song from when I had heard it all those years ago, but time and distance had faded the imagery of the lyrics.
The lyrics were quite simple and the music 'synthetic' as New Wave of the 80s sounds go – but as someone whose mind formulated itself in the 1980s the sound had a warmth (almost homesick trigger) to it.
'Human' was a song of betrayal and of a man asking for forgiveness for an regrettable indiscretion made while his lover was away. Philip Oakey, the voice and songwriter for Human League, blamed the weakness on being 'only human,' simply made of “flesh and blood,” “just a man” and so “born to make mistakes.”
All this time he asks his lover to “dry her eyes,” and find it in her heart to forgive him for the slight.
When the lover finally speaks, she does so with devastating effect by uttering the following words: “The tears I cry aren't tears of pain; They're only to hide my guilt and shame. I forgive you now I ask the same of you, while we were apart I was human too”
The song ends almost immediately after that confession.
Incredible!
So what do you think happened after that? The tables had turned and it was now SHE who had betrayed HIM. I think it apt that every listener is given the opportunity to decide for him or herself the fate of the two.
[Those who have not heard the song (or want a familiar blast from the past) click on the youtube clip below or simply click here for the lyrics.]
In a sense most of us probably face similar dilemmas when it comes to forgiveness (for any real or imagined slight to our ego) – often times it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to give it ourselves. I earnestly believe it is very few of us who can really rise up to the challenge.
But then it is probably this hypocrisy what makes us all 'human' after all.
In my mind it is right to forgive and forget... but in my case, thanks to my brain is an attic theory, I usually forget even if I forget to forgive.
The real question, however, is whether it is the forgiving or often the not being able to forgive that makes us human? I would love to hear from you about what you think. Up for the challenge?
