Fear

My dad taught me never to be afraid of other people. They can only do what you could, conceivably, do right back to them. And from the Christian upbringing point of view; people can kill the body but only God can destroy the soul.

I've gone through life with this sitting in the back of my mind and, 90% of the time, it's seen me right. There were maybe two or three instances at high school when another human being actually scared me, with the prospect of a punch up. I can count on one hand the number of fights I've been in, thanks to my height and build, so like anything one never practices I suck at it. Sure, I could probably throw you across the room, walk over and sit on you until help arrives, but I'd be shaking like a leaf afterwards from the adrenaline overload.

Most days though, unless someone is coming straight at me and I know, for absolute fact, that their intent is to fuck me or one of my friends up, I never get bothered by people. We had some glue sniffing street guys skulking around the empty lot next to our work office a couple of weeks back. Three males, mid 20's, two European and one Maori, all of them lean and wiry with torn clothing, the usual look. My three work colleagues, including a guy I thought was a real stand-up Christian guy, all wanted to call the police and have them driven out with flaming torches. To their horror I walked out with a plate full of food and had a chat with them.

I came back almost in bloody tears, I don't mind saying. My well-off work-mates were all concerned that their cars would be broken into and/or urinated on, but all these guys wanted was a quiet place out back behind the shed to continue screwing up their own lives with substance abuse. They were all underfed, stoned out of their minds and they treated me as if I was some guardian angel sent from on high just for giving them a plate of damn food and talking to them for 5 minutes.

Nobody is inhuman. Most people who do stupid things, or shitty things to others, are trapped either by actual circumstances or, worse, just inside their own head. And that's where they stay because they've got no reason to think any of us give a shit about them. It seems like a terrible irony that we refrain from helping the lost because we fear them.