“I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected: I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have take cover before you switch on the light.”
- C.S. Lewis [Mere Christianity]
This depiction of man’s nasty-first-instincts called to mind a certain situation I found myself in last semester. I was walking the streets with a friend when two student-aged males approached us. One immediately blocked my path, shoved a paper in my face, and demanded me to “save a starving child!” Irritated by his abrasive method, I attempted to go around him, but he just moved in my way again and grabbed my arm. I then found myself physically pushing him out of my path. This did not deter him. What ensued was a heated ten-minute debate about whether or not he was “justified” in physically stopping me, and following me down the street, in order to save a child’s life (as he reasoned). I assured him that he was not, and made sure to inform him that his methods were deplorable, offensive, and extremely lacking in tact. He then accused me of being a cold-hearted, selfish human being who needed to be more sacrificial of her time and money. The truth is, if I had been approached in a more polite matter, I would have reacted an entirely different way. Even if I did not want to donate my money to the cause, I would have been much more graceful in the way in which I explained myself. However, that was not the case. I was so shocked by this guy’s forward behavior, that I didn’t even bother masking my irritation. Instead I proceeded to get into a circular fight with a stranger in which we both aggressively justified ourselves. The rat illustration made me wonder how much of my life consisted of me wearing a mask and hiding my initial reactions to things. This example may be a little bit extreme, but it certainly was a situation in which I found myself fully expressing my unpleasant feelings in a way I haven’t done in a looong time. On a side note: Who the heck thinks aggressively chasing people down the street is the way to get them to give to charity? I’d definitely like to meet this man again and give him some advice.
Filed under: Quote(s)
Interesting quote by Leon Uris, one of my favorite fiction authors. I believe this concept can be applied to other areas of life as well. What is the balance?
“This was what I came to find. The conquest of loneliness was the missing link that was, one day, going to make a decent novelist out of me. If you are out here and cannot close off the loves and hates of all that back there in the real world, the memories will overtake you and swamp you and wilt your tenacity. Tenacity, stamina… close off to everything and everyone but your writing. That’s the bloody price. I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of ultimate selfishness. Maybe it’s part of the killer instinct. Unless you can stash away and bury thoughts of your greatest love, you cannot sustain the kind of concentration that breaks most men trying to write a book over a three- or four-year period.”
- Leon Uris [Mitla Pass, 1988]
