I don’t know why this word has been chasing me around all week…like the Furies with Orestes. CRUELTY.
Apparently CRUEL comes from CRUDE which is derived from some other root meaning BLOOD. And there are two definitions.
The first is knowingly inflicting pain on others.
The second is enjoying inflicting pain on others. Sadism, in other words.
I keep wondering where the impulse to inflict pain on others comes from? An abusive childhood? Chemical imbalance? Bad seed? None of these suffice, somehow. Although there might just be an aspect of revenge to being cruel. Eye for an eye. Tit for tat. Perhaps a biological need for justice? I don’t know. I really don’t.
Of course, as much as I feel myself to be the opposite of cruel, if I think about it, I must confess I have, on rare occasion, been guilty of a cutting comment. As if newts and frogs suddenly and inexplicably spewed from my mouth. That’s what being a chronic People Pleaser will do. Store up all those reptilian thoughts until they can’t keep quiet anymore.
Saying something cruel to another is always a surprise. And usually this cruelty is perpetrated on someone I love most dearly. (DOING something cruel to another, like physical torture, is completely foreign to me.) But really, it’s true what they say about the root of sarcasm. It means “the tearing of the flesh.” Words cause symbolic blood. Where there is a smile, there are also fangs. This is why striving to be authentic is important.
If we say what we mean, and mean what we say, perhaps we won’t have to be mean.
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