Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Check your expiry date on blaming!

Upon meeting a quiet, reserved, shy guy the last thing one would expect to hear, especially not from the guy himself, is that he is easily provoked into fight charging at his enemies like a bull while his friends try to pull him back by the sleeve. In my case the astonishment was even greater as only a few minutes earlier he had complained about having problems with girls for a reason he didn’t know. He wondered why they never stay with him for a long time.

If I hadn’t been so taken aback with this disconnected thinking I would have probably taken some time to predigest in my mind what I wanted to say instead of just blurting out  “Oh, no wonder girls dump you!”. Again surprisingly, my reaction was completely unexpected to him. It looked as if he bit his tongue for saying any of it thinking “Damn, that’s not the impression I’d wanted to make. Her mind went into wrong direction. “ I made him bite his tongue even harder by elaborating on the subject. I actually wanted to help giving him an, obviously very much needed, insight into fear his ex-es might have felt upon realising that they are with somebody who seriously lacks self-control and might lose his temper easily and, who knows, might even raise his hand on his girlfriend. His reassurance that any such thing would never ever happen simply wasn’t convincing enough so he, looking very troubled by then of trying to reverse this unflattering image, mumbled something about his traumatic childhood that taught him to fight for himself, in the real meaning of the word. This was supposed to justify his aggressive behaviour and short temper.

By the same logic I guess, upon hearing of my experience of a refugee, people often feel free to express their annoyance with somebody belonging to any of a number of  “not so popular nationalities” and especially the one that didn’t show much understanding for mine even if the person in question has nothing to do with it. The experience sort of entitles me to be rightfully angry and hostile to these people. I was supposed to learn to act aggressively in my future life as a measure of prevention or in self-defence when facing any different nationality. I am supposed to revenge for my bad fortune and make other people suffer some more, and oh yes, I should call it “fighting for myself”.  

With all these expectations of a person confiding in me, you can imagine their shock when all they get is one big frown on my face followed by a sharp “So what if he or she is (xy)-ian? Do you have a problem with that?”. I get all worked up, with a lot of steam coming out of my ears, but even then I don’t charge at anyone physically, only verbally perhaps, which is again not a good response as on several occasions I overreacted when somebody just wanted to know somebody else’s nationality not meaning any harm (or so they claimed as I am still not completely convinced). People usually don’t realise that it was exactly the same pattern of thinking on the opposite side that contributed to my refugeedom. Any such accusation of an individual on behalf of the nation’s bad reputation actually reminds me of the treatment I used to get in the past. Even though I’ve witnessed how much collective can influence the shaping of the frame of mind of an individual, I still feel it unacceptable not to give somebody a chance to prove you the opposite, that he or she is an independent thinker, and after all just a human being or even a potential friend. Why not? Most of my friends are a result of a wonderful combo of different origins. It makes them, and me as well, only richer.

On the other hand, accepting the same pattern of behaviour to protect yourself from whatever struck upon you in life is the easiest but at the same time a degrading choice. By doing so you perhaps involuntarily, yet inevitably, become exactly what you are fighting against. There is an array of reasons one can easily pull out of sleeve to account for any such irresponsible behaviour or thinking. You can always write it off to your parents, upbringing, war and life circumstances in general. Yet, aren’t these actually the lessons you should pick up some valuable experience from and use it to upgrade yourself?

People are amazing in that they have fought for centuries for freedom of act and speech, but when it comes to making important decisions in life they back up and rather let others make them for them. So even if there aren’t any past or present circumstances to put the blame on, they’ll go and ask somebody else to do the thinking for them. Instead of asking for advice, they often look for somebody to take all the responsibility off their shoulders. Isn’t it very convenient to have somebody else to blame if anything goes wrong? It was funny to hear this from a priest who complained of this twisted logic of the people who turn to him to solve their problems.

I believe George Bernard Show had some of the above on his mind when he wrote:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.