I catch myself at critical moments, not important ones, but ones where I find my mind looping in spiteful and deflective monologues. Of course, the reasons are numerous--jealousy, insecurity, justified superiority--but they all manifest in a singular tension. Often, the tightened muscles and reserved gestures go unchecked, but when I become conscious of them, my attempt to understand my own behavior spirals into an array of deception, deprecation and defense.


Am I simply justifying spiteful behavior the way my parents have for their entire existence? Am I as hypocritical as they are, guilty of act and injustice they wantonly ascribe to others? I maintain a very concious process of discerning what it is about a particular perceived incident or observed behavior that I may find distasteful. "Is it just someone you don't understand? Is it a way you would normally act if given the leniency? Is this born of your own self-loathing?" And I don't believe I blindly presume others to be amoral or disgusting (except white people). It's usually a direct response to a specific happening that I objectively question. Of course the questions still come from my own reference, so how objective can they be?

The point is that I recognize exact annoyances and respond by asking if I'm not the one with the issue. But people really are, at their cores, horrible, with no desire to connect. Every action seems to be advanced out of selfishness or cowardice, two qualities for which I have no pateince. And so yesterday, while reviewing one such encounter with blatantl selfishness, I began to think about meanness and epithets and if most of the vile behavior I detest is actually another form of connection. Maybe connection doesn't occur in the supposedly pure and open forms we so constantly seek on a daily basis. It isn't in a smile, but in a Bronx cheer. So, unlike my parents, cowards on this point, I should reach into what I find the most offensive, assuming that all interactive behavior, including violence, is a way to express the human desire to bond with another human. So, yet again, I reach the conclusion, that I am wrong, that the world is right, and thet all this miserable, crude positioning is expression and yearning. I can accept it, but I may just take another step back.