Of the moment

I can't say that every word I ever wrote was kind, but nor can I say that I meant every harshness I dealt.  And that can become the deadly beauty of writing.  A double-edged sword which can help you cut to the quick of things, but damaging and swift to others.

I remember that a friend of mine once left a diary behind in a move.  He was beside himself with horror that anyone might pick it up and read it, because he wrote freely in it, not withholding his emotion or timbre.  It caused him great anxiety for two days, whereas we safeguarded his words, never opening, and returned the books to him.  In passing, he mentioned writing things in a not-so-nice-way about people in them, and actually said he had done the same to me, 'writing in anger'.  He was easily enough able to retrieve the books and continue our friendship, although he admittedly wrote very ugly things in it about me.  I was able to nod to this, because I believed my friend had a right to his feelings in the heat of the moment.

I look at my words to him in recent times badly.  I know they were unkind.  I was angry and dealing with other things, but....he is firmly of the belief that people, depressed or having issues should be responsible for their actions and words......Oddly, even in anger, I had the strength to speak directly to him (or indirectly, writing to him) and I shamed for my behavior.  But what he writes, as long as I wasn't privy to it, does it make it justifiable?

I look at the double-standard as interesting.  I am not saying either of us is right or wrong, but in my observation, it looks like a duality exists.  Just as assuredly, if I know that something is illegal and willingly engage in the act, then I am chancing the probability of being caught.  Having to be responsible for engaging in the illegal act.  I will not cry about how unfair I think it is, or how the system is wrong.  I will not evangelize about my rights, the deterioration of 'the system', or make any other excuse about why I should not be arrested, tried and convicted.  When I speed in traffic, although I have faith in my driving capabilities, although I have never been in a car accident, if I accelerate above the speed limit, I know that there is a possibility that I can be stopped by law enforcement, ticketed, and possibly jailed.  So when I speed, I willingly break the posted law, the law I know about, so when I have to face the consequences, I will accept them as an adult.  I might bitch about the fact that I hate the process.  But I know the law, no matter how unfair it is to me, and anything else is just looking for an excuse.  At least, that's how I feel.

And yes, I speed sometimes.  Just not often.  Because frankly, I can't think of anything so important that I couldn't have left twenty minutes earlier for instead of trying to break the sound barrier. Granted,in  emergency instances...well, if you'd have known it was an emergency twenty minutes earlier, you'd already be long gone, wouldn't you?