Hmmmm ... now what do you make of this? Have you ever noticed how quick we are to share the pain? We seem incapable of making that decision to protect others from our own suffering, and afflicted with a bizzare determination to plunge others into the same "bad moment" we are experiencing. I don't mean on major issues here, like the death of loved ones, the outbreak of war in our homeland or discovering you have no milk when you have already poured out the Coco Pops ...
Nope, I'm talking about the small stuff here. Those small sorrows that remind us that this is Monday and that these irritating events that are a sure sign of a bad hair day coming on. We seem incapable of keeping these frustrations to ourselves. Almost as if we have a limited storage capacity for pain that swiftly overflows and inundates others, we just have to give those around us a "taste". You know what I mean ...
You step out of a lunch bar, sandwich in hand and head for your favourite lunch time lurking spot ... and bite into your purchase only to discover that, either you picked something from the "Instant Food Poisoning" menu or the sandwich constructor was trying to kill you. And what do you do then? You turn to the person next to you and say something along the lines of, "Man, this sandwich tastes like a hippo barfed in it ... you taste it." For some reason, its important to us that the other person enjoys the taste of hippo barf too ...
Walking along a street with a friend, its your misfortune to pass an over-ripe rubbish bin, loaded with what, at 50 paces, smells like 5 kilos of rancid baboon cheese blended with 12 rotten eggs and garnished with a dead rat. And on receipt of this olifactory exposion, what do we do but share it. "That smells aweful ... can you smell it? Go on, take a sniff." Now why didnt we say, "That rubbish bin smells really bad ... hold your breath"?
Somehow, and for some reason, we all want share the pain. Yet, strangely, when its good, we want to keep it all for ourselves. Hmmmm ...
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