I am a calm person, who prefers to avoid conflict altogether so, for some, this piece of writing may seem inconsequential. However, I will try to explain why the following incident is relevant to the subject matter of PARTLY GOD.
Only once have I experienced the rush of adrenaline that pumps through veins before acting violently. I was 12 years old and two of my good friends had decided that it was a day to taunt and tease me. I don’t remember the reason for their actions; I don’t remember giving them a reason to do it … I think I was just an easy target and they knew I wouldn’t do much in terms of retaliation.
For some reason, on this day I felt the anger boiling in my blood. I had never before been so overcome with hatred and all of a sudden lost complete control of my usual passive behaviour! Without realising it, my leg shot out from under me and connected with the knee cap of one of my friends.
Her reaction was simply a laugh. I don’t know if it was out of shock or pity but it didn’t seem to bother her that much. I, on the other hand, was distraught. Mostly because I had acted so violently, completely out of character. I think if I were feistier as a person I would have continued to kick her until she cried and I got my point across, but the fact that I felt so bad about kicking her, even though she was initially being abusive, makes me think …
The amount of anger one has to be consumed with in order to act violently is frightening if you consider the brutal acts of violence that happen in our communities every day.
It’s painfully difficult for me to fathom that a human being can be almost entirely consumed by a feeling that one act of violence can affect the lives of many, even millions around them.
A feeling that cannot be classified in any simple terms … just a feeling that stabs us so deeply and creates so much adrenalin that the reaction is instinctively to inflict pain onto another. – Leilah Kirsten, Jazzart trainee
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