I often look at people and think, 'I know the type' but if I were being brutally honest, I don't know anything at all and I am just fitting someone into a box to suit a limited view of reality. It is from this limited view that I have tried to expand myself so that I include everyone in life in my life, and in a way that doesn't involved stereotyping them. This is not the easiest thing to do, especially when many people do indeed follow predictable paths.
In any examination of others you must, and this really needs to be done, examine yourself, your situation and your life first. How are you to understand the person with whom you are interacting if you have no understanding of yourself? It cannot be done with any true meaning and will benefit neither party in the end. I have been called to reveal my past on many occasions, to undergo examination if you like, by others who will actually pass judgement on me based on that past. While all those yesterdays sit comfortably with me today, as they are days long gone, I am reminded of them and of the small fact I can still be punished for them over and over by everyone deeming they have a right to do so. Maybe they do, but it does make it hard sometimes.
With such situations facing me regularly I have been even more cautious of how I treat others and how I view them, their past and their lives in general. I don't want to be judged harshly by others for things that have happened in my past, so when I confront others who similarly has issues they would rather forget, I have afforded them this respect. I know how it feels and I do not want to one of those who inflicts pain on anyone because of wrong doing of the past.
Many people know me, so know of me and many have heard of me and more and more I am learning there are many who would rather hurt me that read my fiction. There are many who would rather judge me that to give me air. For my part I have already sought forgiveness for breaking the law in my youth, for doing things that were antisocial, so now I don't feel I have to seek forgiveness from everyone who discovers me and requires their own vested interests to structure yet another forgiveness. There was the saying, 'do the crime, do the time' - I have done the time, then I have done it again, and again, and again and I am doing the time over and over and over because everyone wants me to do it for them as well. I will never be free of my past, and I will never be free of punishment for it - though these days I don't punish myself, there are plenty of others to do that for me.
I will say, I use to look at people and think I knew what type of person they are, but now I look at people and think what type of complexity makes up the lives they must lead, and how many times must they say sorry in order to be allowed to draw breath and exist. I am not going to be another's judge anymore. I am not going to be someone who points fingers and whispers secrets or hearsay. While I do suffer from such things myself, I am not going to then do the same to others out of spite.
Yes, I broke the law a few times in my bad days, and on my bad days, and yes I was convicted, fined and punished. But no, I do not want you to extract another punishment to make you happy about dealing with me. Having now walked many kilomtres in shoes that did pick up mud, it is time for new shoes and better roads.
Robert
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