getting this out of my system

- a rant needed to be blogged so it won't clog my system -

December 16, 2009


I have heard the strangest words of wisdom today from someone who is ironically the least qualified to supply such adages to his unenthusiastic listeners. So this ‘friend’ of mine rattled about how we should give respect to get respect in return. And how if we give respect to something that we do, only then will others respect it as well and not be so nonchalant with the whole procedure. The last thing he said nearly blow up my mind had I not strained myself to go through the whole ordeal expressionless and to just let the words pass from one ear to another. And so I quote “We have to give respect, even if he is a bad man, we have to give respect”. He even has the gall to insert reference to religion and personal principles. I bit my tongue to stop myself from asking if he was referring to himself.

What happened was that I and the other guy were talking about tolerance levels. We had both agreed that the art of being able to tolerate someone or something is indeed a personal feat. We also came to the conclusion that we had high levels of tolerance but like everything else, all good things must come to an end. After all, change is inevitable. Time will come when all you have taken in and decide to tolerate will just lump into one big ugly ball of fire ready to burst. And then you can’t stop yourself. And by then all respect you try to put in together will just shatter into small irreparable pieces. I am no saint; I cannot forever keep my mouth shut and just dismiss things.

Sometimes I know people wonder how I can harbor such hatred to someone. AS I always say, I am not naturally vengeful. I may have certain unexplainable dislike for some people but I will never be the first to provoke a fight. I will pretend that the person doesn’t exist. Only - and only – when the person does something to me do I retaliate in each and every opportunity that I can.

Trust me; I have tried my best to ignore him. But when a person deliberately (or maybe unconsciously) puts himself again and again in a position for you to lose that respect you have worked extra hard against your will, the only thing left is to give in to the desire to fight - verbally of course!

And if it weren’t enough, he came to softly reprimand my talking partner about trust. He went on to say that hiding the key to the safe is an expression of insecurity; a lack of trust to his colleagues. The funny thing was that we have specifically discussed that my talking partner alone would know about the key’s whereabouts because yes, we didn’t trust this guy. In more occasion than we can count, we have cases of disappearing and appearing documents. And our discussion of these “magic” moments has always ended up with the assumption that our preacher has all the reason and opportunity to play the magician’s part. On one part I am happy he actually understood the logic behind the key hiding. The only sad thing is that he is in denial that the act was directed at him.