Friday, January 5, 2024
I once had to teach someone how to drive. He didn’t understand English fluently, he didn’t understand driving rules in this country, and he had no clue about a five-speed transmission! My clutch almost burned up; but I burned up first! In one of our driving lessons, I went ballistic when he ran a red-light and almost stopped in the middle of an intersection. He wanted to stop and get out of the car because I was yelling at him. That enraged me more. I never knew I had such anger in me. I shocked myself!
There are people and circumstances in your life that will draw out your demons. Your situation, the people you’re with, and the environment can bring out horrible, unbeknownst features of yourself. I’m finishing up a fascinating book called The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. The author goes into convincing detail about how environments make us succumb to unthinkable behaviors; however, Victor Frankel might disagree. In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, he spoke about a few people transcending deplorable conditions and being kind and decent to one another while being treated like animals.
The point is, you don’t know yourself; but you are capable of more than you think. There’s a wild creature within you, and life is taming it, drawing out its uncontrollable urges. In a famine, we’d likely become animals; but there are those who are more enlightened. Pay attention, treat everyday as a crisis. In a way, it is. Try to rise above what seems so awful, so you don’t sink to the lowness that people carry around with them daily. I shudder to think that I am part animal – wild and not fully capable of knowing better. But to be fully tame – that will take the universe a great deal of time and trial. Help it along by becoming aware.