A rather odd thing happened this morning on campus, and as is usually the case, I ended up feeling guilty for not having followed my gut and acted.
As I came out of one of the buildings just before class there was a young man smoking a cigarette by himself. But I had to look twice because he was speaking quite loudly in bitter complaint. Odd, because he was totally alone, and there was no cellular phone in his hand. He didn’t appear to notice me, although he was actively stomping his feet from the cold and moving around still in loud conversation with no one. Instead of asking him if everything was all right, I went further down the walkway to have a cigarette myself. There were only a couple other students in the courtyard who possibly didn’t hear him, and one gentleman passed him by and continued on. I wanted to head back into the building because I was cold, but since no one was nearby and the young man was still going on and on–not yelling nor cursing profusely, simply venting angrily–I ducked inside another building to wait him out. When next I looked, he was gone. I then nervously left my hiding place and went to the building where my class would be, and where the young man had also apparently gone in.
Was I afraid? A bit, I guess; but what harm would it have been to simply ask if he needed help? When next I saw him, he was coming out of one of the classrooms with the rest of the class, and nothing seemed wrong.
I sincerely regret not being less afraid and at least approaching him. And, I sincerely hope that he is indeed all right; that it was just a case of letting off a little steam. Perhaps it was even a planned exercise in psychology, and I just proved his point about man’s reluctance to get involved in helping his fellow man.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
It’s a strange sort of guilt, that one – a symptom of modern life, the personal shame of being unwilling to help a stranger.
As a fairly non-threatening looking male, it hits me most when I see a publlc fight between a girl and her boyfriend, a really nasty one. Last time I was going down to my father’s, at the train station a girl was having a fight with her boyfriend. She was screaming at him to leave her alone, that she didn’t want to speak to him, that he should get back on the train and go home, and he was refusing and insisting that he was going to come back to her place with her. She was trying to get away from him – I passed them and kept walking – then he grabbed her and she started screaming. I stopped, turned around, felt like I should do something, but he was much bigger than me. So I kept walking. A security guard approached – He was about sixty, and also no match for this guy. He took a deep breath, and went up to them. I simultaneously felt a deep admiration for this man, and shame at my own inaction.
Your blog is really nicely written, by the way.
I remember once when I was an undergraduate, a woman who lived in my apartment complex was dragging a child up the stairs when she slapped him. When she saw me staring at her, she blurted, “What’re you looking at?” Without thinking, I replied, “Child abuse.” She grabbed the child’s hand, hauled him insied, and slammed the door. I doubt that her plans included cuddling and comforting him.
Another time I was at an electronics store around Christmastime, in a long line of people wanting to exchange gifts. A man with a son who looked about eight walked in, saw the long line, and started a scene in which he demanded to be serviced. A manager came out of her office, pulled him inside, and started helping him. I got a bit annoyed, not just at the man, but also the manager; I poked my head into her office and asked, “Is this a special line for impatient assholes? Because if there is a special line for impatient assholes, I’d like to cut into that line.” I didn’t address the customer, of course, just he manager. The customer marched up to me, held his fist near my face, and asked, whether I would like a “knuckle sandwhich”. I brushed him off, saying something like “I’ve already eaten,” and when he repeated his demand, I said more clever stuff like, “Excuse me, I’m talking to this manager about impatient assholes,” and so forth. The manager was trying to stifle a smile — she was clearly delighted that I was taunting customer for her. And I was speaking in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, so that the long line of customers only heard the man going ballistic.
It felt good at the time, but I would never do something like that now — I don’t know whether it’s the fact that I’m a family man now, or that news stories about road rage (or, in this case, queue rage) have made me rethink the risk factor involved. While I don’t think of myself as a physical person, I am six feet tall and have a loud voice. I felt perfectly safe confroting the annoying customer, but I felt very intimidated by the reaction of the mother, even though as it happened when she called out to me she was on the stairs a flight and a half above my head. I doubt I made either little boy’s life easier by confronting their parents.
Ahh yes..courage. The difference between being oppressed or independent.
Someone once asked a hard working farmer why he did’nt speak up to his landlord; why did’nt he complain about all the injustice that he had to bear; how could he see his sweat and labour being snatched away from him in the form of half his produce taken away as taxes;and worst of all,how could he bear being flogged if nature ruined his plans of a bountiful harvest?
All he could say was, “I have six mouths to feed.”
Thank you all. I’m sure we’re all loaded with coulda’s, woulda’s and shoulda’s but instantaneous action also carries with it fears that bear their own coulda’s as well–as shown in every day’s news. I’d like to think that apathy doesn’t play as much a part in our reactions as self-preservation, but even so, if we’re all going to die anyway, why the fear of just a possibility of it happening when in the act of trying to help others?
as Susan put it, it is a part of self preservation, which is a natural phenomenon. but what about everyday circumstances?
i think to some extent it also also us bein guilty and bein caught up in our own lives so much that we probably don’t want to be ‘bothered’. could it be?
Obviously I avoided details about the encounter that may have presented a clearer picture, and set the tone myself as far as my guilt in not helping someone. But the fact is that I am female, slightly over middle age (assuming that science will indeed have us living into our 100’s)and 5 ft. tall weighing 100 lbs. Yes, I was intimidated by the young man who was slight of build, but between 18 and 20, about 5’9″ (height’s a hard one for me to guess) and clearly agitated by something that had happened to him. And, he was talking out loud to himself or no one. My lack of action was prompted mainly out of personal fear for my own safety, as no one was really around to help if the situation turned bad. When I first served as a volunteer EMT, I was so caught up in being willing to help others that I stopped once to help a young fellow that had driven off the road onto someone’s lawn. I actually let him get into my car and drove him to a telephone. He wanted to drive around for a while and eventually asked for a kiss. I was older than him, so I was able to talk him out of that as well as my car and left him in a safe place. But it was a foolish thing for me to do. I’ve done things like this many times, and many times it has been helpful to someone, but just as often I have been thankful that the situation didn’t turn bad, and guilty for the times that I didn’t take the risk. I guess we just need to go with our gut feelings sometimes, and hope we make the right choice. I also feel that there are more people out there than you believe who are willing to help rather than turn their back on someone in need.