There Is A Saying

And it doesn't see nearly enough recognition these days.

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by accident."

That may not be the exact saying, but it's near enough to the heart of the matter that it works for me.  In case one doesn't understand, what it breaks down as, is "never assume someone meant to hurt you, when it's very likely what happened was an unfortunate mistake."

I see way too much of this day-to-day.  Stories in the news about shootings over insults, people becoming suspicious of their spouses working late, parents making assumptions about their child's friends based on a lingo they are probably too old to understand.  It's not just the big places, either.  Even in small areas of good friends, the same thing can happen.  I've seen people who were once good friends fall apart through this occurance.  Some supposed insult occurs, and the other person takes it as a personal attack, when all that happened was that the first person said or did something they had no realization was a problem.

This happens a lot among autistic/Aspergers people.  It's mentioned frequently in the literature that we sometimes will do something offensive, not realizing that what we have done IS in fact offensive.  I personally take responsibility for this, and I frequently tell people that I may do this, and ask that they please correct me if I have done something wrong.

But too many people can't do this.  They refuse to accept that anything could be done or said innocently, and that anything which happens to them is a direct attack fueled purely by the attacker's resentment.  A recent incident I observed seemed to bear this fact out...despite apologies and offers to rectify the mistake, the person who took offense refused to be mollified, instead insisting on, essentially, behaving like an immature child and clinging to the anger.  Absolutely nothing was acheived by this, whereas had said offended person simply realized that perhaps a mistake had been made and it could be fixed if they allowed, the problem would have gone away very simply.

That's not to say there are times offense isn't meant, or there are insincere apologies, those absolutely exist too, and one should consider them.  But overall, the odds run far greater towards the truth of the saying.  The world would probably be a lot better of a place if more people took to it.

First entry

I had a thought of trying out this blogging thing.  I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of ideas on what to do with it.  It really seems like a lot of the good ideas have already been taken!  That being said, I suppose I can figure out something interesting to do.  If nothing else, I do have a lot of stories to tell that people tell me are good.  The odds are perfectly good that they're lying to me and my stories are inherently boring.  But they're just as good that the truth is being told.

Anyway, just watch this space for further notice!