Few people
set out to deliberately hurt others. It’s just a sad fact of human nature that
some are so blinkered to any if not all
home truths that it’s just the way they are; we can take it or leave it. More needs to be done, especially in schools, by way of educating the blinkered among us to the harsher realities of life, an how we can combat them.
With
several people who have played a significant part in my life, it took 20+ years
before I finally decided to call it a day. Since being diagnosed with prostate
cancer in February 2011, I have written off more fair weather
friendships.
There was
a time I’d have been philosophical to the extent of being stoical and simply
accepted the situation, telling myself I was being selfish and others had their
own lives to lead and resuming the friendship once this or that crisis to which
I had been subjected and they preferred to turn a blind eye had passed. Not anymore though. Since turning 60 (born in 1945) I decided that enough is enough,
and time is too precious to waste on such people. .
So why do
I feel so guilty about it...?
It is easy enough to jump to wrong conclusions or fall prey to false impressions passed on and further distorted by gossips, hackers and the like. I guess we need to give people - especially family and friends - the benefit of any doubt; it works both ways, though ... doesn't it?
[Update
2/2016: I still feel much the same way if not more so. Having spent nearly eighteen months learning to walk again after smashing up my foot in a bad fall during
the summer of 2014, I now know for sure who my real friends are. I was housebound for five
months during which relatively few so-called friends could be bothered to even pick up a
phone for a chat, which would have meant a lot. Oh, I haven't given up on all my fair weather friends, but our association is much the worse for wear and I will see to it that I spend far
less time with them than in future.]
This poem
is a kenning.
TAPPING INTO SOCIAL CONSCIENCE or SHAKING UP SOCIETY
I’ve run
the gauntlet
of love,
life, fun, and tears,
trying to
make the best
of things
rather than complain
about the
worst years,
struggling
to rise above
the pain
human beings
inflict
upon each other time
and time
again
I turn to
nature
for
comfort and brief respite
from a
daily torture
humanity
asks me to endure
with all
the dignity
and
stoicism of someone
always
expected to put
other
people’s needs before
his or
her own
I lie
awake at night
wondering
who or what
is wrong
or right
amongst
all that’s been said
and done
in the course
of
whatever merry chase
mischievous
Apollo
and
outcast Cassiopeia care
to lead
us on
I am that heartbeat of humanity
embracing its own vulnerability
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2011
Labels: aspirations, conscience, education, history, human nature, Human Rights, life, love, mind-body-spirit, poetry, positive thinking, relationships, self awareness, social awareness, stereotypes, young people
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