I still have a problem with people who are cruel. I don’t mean people who are blunt or direct, or speak straight. I mean people who seem to not care about another human being; people who seem streaked with so much anger and self-righteousness that they reek of havoc and discourse. People who don’t see what harm they are doing.

And that is where my trouble begins, as I begin to examine my own self-made rules. For I have taught myself what I value and what I do not value. I have even gone so far as to untie what I value from the post of reason, as to not tether my own self to the exactness of how things should be.

I practice detachment: the absence of having to think, be or act a certain way.

This is freeing. And in releasing attachment, in the same way, I release others from their behaviors. I can discount my own judgment and evaluation, and mark my processing as discernment, gently releasing any assumptions and labeling I might be doing at a conscious or subconscious level. I can step back and observe myself observing life and its nuances.

In examining my process of being, I have come to the conclusion that I still am shattered at an energetic and psychic level by a certain type of abashment. I can’t say why or how, or even what it is that allows this uncomfortable feeling to slip into me. But it happens. Again and again it happens. Substantial is the effect, when I am in a vulnerable state; yet equal, it appears, is the effect even when I am strong and in a state of persevering confidence and love of self.

There is an emotion-like sensation that overcomes me, wherein I don’t want to preach or fix, or even explain anything; more so I want to shake a person without physically touching, and move her to another place in her reality—a place away from cruelty.

The problem follows when I attempt to sort out in my mind where this cruelty is found and in reasoning how it is demonstrated, as everyone displays their own sense of reality through their perceived and self-contracted truths. In so thinking another is cruel, I am ultimately deeming my reality more true and accurate than another’s. And this act of deeming another different and therefore wrong is not a practice I endorse.

And so the question remains as what qualifies as cruel, and particularly, what qualifies for downright cruel. Is it to be based upon repeated patterns of continual harsh words and/or actions? Is the cruelty to be justified by the individual’s past experiences or unjustified by the lack of qualifying disturbances in the past? And who is to be the judge and evaluator? How can I readily serve as the judge and jury of someone else, when that is the exact thing I wish others to not do to me?

It comes down to, again, asking myself, where is the line to be drawn? In this instance, where is the line to be drawn between cruelness and gentleness? And in addition, who gets to decide where the line is drawn? In accepting this way of living, this choice of idealism in myself, that of acknowledging a world in which I am neither captain or mate, neither leading or following, I am simultaneously accepting that another’s actions are neither here nor there, and like I am, another being is merely a player in a part of an illusion he or she has created.

Here is where the confusion begins: For when is enough enough? And is it ever enough?

Would I have listened to another’s advice or adhered to another’s heeding years ago, in my fumbling youth? Adamantly, I think not. Then what is it that I would accomplish by establishing my truth as the truth, whilst hammering into another my ways of moving in the world?

I can believe for a while my truth might persuade, or at minimum seduce; but even the thought of such beliefs feels burdensome upon my mind’s pallet. Therefore, I conclude, for myself, that it is better to say nothing, and to watch, to visualize and understand that all is as is, than to attempt to explain my way of existing. For it is my very silence which serves as the testimony of accepting another in completion.

Still, there is this lingering doubt in me, and inkling of self that believes there remains somewhat of an unspoken tribe of others whom set out to harm with intention. And in believing so, I sit with myself, and wonder what is it inside of me that causes me to think this? What is it inside of me that wants others to love unconditionally and accept unconditionally, yet also remains constant and steadfast in desire to extinguish parts of another?

In truth, I acknowledge that I must first surrender all battles, for good or for bad, and face my own self with outstretched arms of love. I recognize I can only overcome the shadows outside of myself, once I cast out the shadows within myself.

And so, I watch, as the outsider looking inward and outward, waiting for the signal, waiting and pondering when to move beyond the limitations of my own existence, of my own creation of reality, in order to assist in the greater good. And I can’t help but think, that in my silence and discreet opposition of opposing, I can create the exact love the others of cruel acts so desperately seek.