It's Cool by the Pool - except it isn't really [COLUMN]

The poison has to go somewhere

A few days ago a bee spotted my bicycle helmet and mistook it for some predatory bird or insect (unless it saw me for exactly who and what I am, which is a thought in itself). The impact of the insect body on my skull - I felt it. And almost immediately, the itchy burn of the sting. I imagine the bee collided and stung me in virtually the same motion. If you're going to go out, that may be the way to do it.

You must remember, when a bee decides to sting, it is an act that will cost it its life. It is done in service to the colony, so there is no private agenda.

Over the past few days the insect venom has travelled around my skull. First, the frontal lobe swelled to such an extent, wearing a cap became a heady and claustrophobic idea. It's not an exaggeration to say that I resembled an alien form of life - a large head with small eyes - so a very very advanced intelligence.
But then the venom shifted, downward, and filled the bridge of my nose, giving me a faintly oriental look. The venom then slid sideways into my tear ducts, literally squishing poofy skin over my eyes, reinforcing the tear jerked appearance. Right now, the puffiness is manifest as 'bags under my eyes'. My cheeks are feeling prickly already. I am still living with the death of that bee 4 days later. That's powerful for a creature hardly the size of my smallest toe.

The point is, poison has to go somewhere. It doesn't disappear ,even if the perpetrator has been disposed of or disappears, or seems either invisible or not to exist. Let me say that again: the poison has to go somewhere.

Now bear with me. I was a little boy once, and I remember an episode of Die Meisie van Avignon. Someone made the remark in that episode that if you do not experience something during the natural course of your life (kissing, sex, growing up, some sort of emotional evolution), by sidestepping it you do not dodge it. You postpone it. This is because everyone must experience a certain critical level of development before they, well...become who they are supposed to become. So, in a sense, if you deny yourself plenty of experiences, that will come back and visit you later in your life. I am not referring to absurd experiences such as taking drugs or getting addicted to something. We all know what experiences are part and parcel of growing up. When you miss them, it is very painful. It is a physical loss. That's what I'm referring to...and this is analogous, also, to poison. In the same way, when we avoid certain confrontations in everyday life, we do not make life easier for ourselves (though we convince ourselves that we do). Rather, we postpone the inevitable, and inevitably, when we are faced with an incontrovertible encounter, it's a lot uglier than an encounter we could have chosen for ourselves.

I do not know why so many people today are poisoned the way they are. It is possibly encouraged, manifested and spread by the media, and its supreme agent - advertisers. This is a factor. The culture we operate in which is fundamentally flawed, deluded and dysfunctional, also plays a role. Where we are today is a world that is universally corrupt.

Over the past few weeks I have witnessed this in ordinary people - in their failure to be honest in ordinary conversations. These are people who have nothing materially to lose, and even if there is a risk, is honesty not a policy worth adhering to? Apparently not. And I - nodding at a few of my speeding fines - don't hold myself as a poster child for morality. But I do believe a basic bottom line of high standards is necessary to be a functional person in a functional society. It is scary and dangerous that most people see it the other way round. That we do and say whatever is easiest to secure what we want - and to hell with morality, to hell with honesty. That sort of attitude gets you in hell, rather than delivers from it.

You don't have to be a Christian or religious to understand that you reap what you sow. Dishonesty tends to beget the truth boomeranging back to you again and again, like a loud knocking on the door, and the knocker knows you're there.

Do you understand what I mean when I talk about universal corruption? I am talking about most people demonstrating very little respect for one another (real respect, not respect based on societal demands). people respecting your time, people taking the time to know who you are, people bothering to figure out why. I am talking about places of work, and the jobs we do, and the way we are required to do them. I am referring to how we conventionally communicate with each other these days. And disposable friendships. I am talking about our appetites for self indulgences - especially for things, and for sex, and for what we want (because we want it).

The reason for this universal corruption - and this is a poison in the human organism - is due to the chronic disconnectedness between individuals. You notice this in the way fa miles easy disintegrate - through divorce and bickering and grudges. You see this in the way couples use and manipulate and then abandon one another. Our society is interesting for its hypocrisy. One minute undying, unconditional love, the next day a vindictive statement on Facebook for all to see.

The poison has to go somewhere.

We may think, when we chop off a friendship, or get the better of a colleague, or delete an unfriendly email, that the poison is gone. No. It's still there.

I will offer a last analogy. Yesterday I was driving home and had to avoid the scene of a car accident, which was situated close to two nasty potholes (which probably caused it). I slowed down to navigate around the accident and the potholes, and as I did so, a red golf raced by me on the left (the slow lane), hit the pothole and then turned out of the inside lane, narrowly missing me. If I did not come to a complete stop, and I had right of way, there would have been another collision right there. At the next traffic light I drew alongside the golf, wanting to communicate how foolish it is to be pulling that sort of manoeuvre at the scene of a car accident. The woman behind the wheel didn't want to lower her window (my window was down), although she was mouthing words.

I don't understand that. She had done something wrong, she could see she had upset someone (me) and yet she didn't want to deal with it. I gestured that i couldn't hear her and that she should lower her window. Because yes, with her window up, it made me quite angry. She refused, which meant we had to shout through her closed window, and I have no idea what she was saying. This woman is an example of someone who thinks the poison just disappears. That you can behave like a lunatic, and hide behind a pane of class, miming: "Sorry, I can't hear what you're saying."

That is morally corrupt.
It's shameful.
Today though, it is normal.
Shamefully corrupt behaviour by ordinary people (at least in this country) is normal.

The simple way to deal with that was to simply accept responsibility and apologise. Wind down the window: "I know. Sorry." A space of grace then expands around both people, where both people feel validated, and valued (as they should). You respect yourself enough to apologise, and the other person enough to put yourself into their context, and address their concerns.

In short: you care.

But no one does that today.

It is an inversion of wanting something for nothing (wanting no recognition or admonition for a mistake).
But these are the people we have become today, and the centre cannot hold when enough poison begins to infect the system. You cannot get something for nothing for very long. You cannot get away with treating others in a particular manner for long (and them not responding). This is because, even if you are determined to ignore it, the poison has to go somewhere.

What makes us sick as an organism, is we actually believe that even though by ignoring reality (and despite us seeing the consequences of that plan leading to an increase in our troubles, and our troubles escalating around us as a result) we still somehow expect it will still go away. For that sort of stupidity, we deserve to pay very heavy penalties. We have, we are, and we will.