The pleasure in dispensing pain varies in each of us. We weigh any predicted anguish our conscience will dog us with and blast away accordingly. Those of us with low thresholds are the nice people. Peggy Noonan had this to say about Ken Lay's death and hurting others."Is this Shakespearian in the sense of being towering and tragic? I don't know. I think it's primal and human. And I think if we were more regularly conscious of the fact that death through sadness happens we'd be better to each other. I'm thinking here of a friend who reflected one day years ago, I cannot recall why, on how hard people are on each other, how we're all complicated little pirates and more sensitive, more breakable, than we know.
"He said--I paraphrase--"It's a dangerous thing to deliberately try to hurt someone because it's not possible to calibrate exactly how much hurt you're doing. You can't know in advance the extent of the damage. A snub can leave a wound that lasts a lifetime, a bop on the head with a two-by-four will be laughed off. One must be careful. We'll always hurt others by accident or in a passion but we mustn't do it with deliberation."
And God's Word reminds me: "In the multitude of words, there is no lack of sin: but he who refrains his lips is wise." Proverbs 10:19
"Complicated little pirates" quotes here.
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