The Worst Thing You've Ever Done

[dalekboy]

This piece is not about any one person specifically, it's about the way people are demonised in general.

I want you to think about the worst thing you've ever done. Something, no matter how long ago you did it, that you're still ashamed of. Don't shy away from it, think hard about the nastiest, shittiest, lowest thing you've ever done to someone.

Now, I want you to imagine people in general, and the internet as a vague group, deciding that's the person you really are.

Think about how they would react, how they would treat you, attack you, the things they would write about you - for a single act. It doesn't matter if it was a mistake, deliberate, or if there were extenuating circumstances - they don't care. There's little to no forgiveness out there, almost every time folks talk about you, it will be in relation to whatever it was you did.

How would that make you feel, as the weeks became months and years, and people still brought it up? How would you feel about the fact that no matter what else you did, there would always be someone there ready to bring up that single bad decision and start the whole thing up again? That every other positive act in your entire life would be deemed unimportant or irrelevant compared to this single event.

I'm not saying there should be universal forgiveness. Some people repeatedly do horrid things to others. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a price to pay for a single error, sometimes we have to make amends. But if the only issue you can find with a person is one really bad thing they've done, then doesn't that suggest there may be more to them than that one act?

Remember this the next time the crowd starts baying for someone's blood over a single mistake, especially if you're part of that crowd. Other people are as complex and have as many layers as you do.

You, and I, are not just the worst thing we ever did.

And neither is anyone else.

Comments

[punkrocker1991.livejournal.com]

good thoughts, I was pondering just this on my drive to work today, and am glad to then find out I don't have to try to articulate this. I think that this also gets complicated by the different weightings we each give to what is good and bad: what is a minor misdemeanor to some is really bad to others.

[punkrocker1991.livejournal.com]

What has started me pondering this is the hoohaa over a woman in WA needing a new liver. On one hand she's a human being who may be able to be helped. On the other, she's already had her body reject one liver, possibly related to her history of drug use. Even the ABC manages to throw "drug addict" into any headline it possibly can, as if drug addicts are less human than the rest.

[nephron.livejournal.com]

I don't want to go into this in great detail, but the transplant team absolutely made the right decision in denying that woman another liver. Not to say that she's a bad person, or not deserving- but there are very limited livers and very limited money to go around, and she would have known before she got her first liver transplant that further IV drug use was a no-no.