“I wonder if we are ready to look at each other in the eye, and see our own humanity reflected in one another. If we do. When we do. We would be fully human.”
I read this piece and thought about an incident yesterday. I was pulling out from a parking lot into a busy street. I had pulled up a little into the sidewalk so I could get a better look into the street. A car pulled up behind me and just at that moment a pedestrian stepped out and I had to stop. I wanted to pull back but couldn’t. A man and his daughter came by from the right. He was clearly infuriated as he passed my car. I rolled down my window to apologize and he went off. Furious, judgmental and sarcastic.
I was rather shocked. In my New York days I would have gone off right back at him. I have become more circumspect in public. As it was, his anger, his outrage was transferred instantaneously onto me. I was shocked, angry, upset.
Isn’t it interesting—rage is like a virus and it’s so easy to catch. One outburst and you can be off to the races. “Stupid prick” I said to myself, “asshole”, “self-righteous prig”, “Fuck you.” I chewed on these feelings all the way home trying vainly to dismiss them. But I couldn’t. Rage feeds more rage.
Of course, during the night this incident seemed of no importance and I didn’t think of it again until I read the above.
I am especially taken by the concept of seeing the human within the other person. I believe I saw him as he passed before my car. He was angry and upset and I wanted to apologize to him. What he saw was clearly not me. He saw all the assholes in his life who get in his way. He saw his stupid mother-in-law who shouldn’t be driving. He saw a spoiled old lady who feels entitled to stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Who knows? I don’t know who he saw but he didn’t see me..He used me as a foil for his inner state.
His anger entered me and I was left with it. Did it help him any? Was he less angry at his child or partner when he got home? What poison was he carrying inside?
I made a mistake. I pulled too far into the sidewalk. I shouldn’t have done that. Mea culpa.
He had what amounted to road rage. I do not doubt that if he had had a weapon, he would of used it. He wanted to obliterate, to flatten me. How odd that our life, offering as it does many creature comforts, cannot calm the creature within.
Rage is not okay. Rage sucks. The reason rage sucks is because anything can set it off—a child’s crying, a moment of stupidity, a bad lunch.
Tend to your rage Sir. It has no place on our streets or in our homes. Tend to your rage before you hurt someone.
Hello. Yes, this is Dog 