Something to Talk About

Talking about other people can be entertaining. Sometimes it's pretty harmless, when we talk about their quirky habits. In some way, we're all quirky, and so it's okay to laugh. We sympathise with each other in that basic human condition of quirkiness. But there are other ocassions when talking about other people can be harmful. That's usually when we bring out our judgements of other people. It is especially harmful when people talk in this way about someone to another person whom he or she has never met. No matter that we know how incorrect it is not to form your own opinion based on others. Things are said that are heard, and that are, in some way, are planted in our own minds, such that we cannot help but frame the subject of the conversation by the words that have been released.

But what's even scarier about prejudice by gossip, is that you have no idea what these people who say things about others, say about you behind your back. We can believe with all our might that we are good people, that we always put our best foot forward, that we operate on some level of goodness and morality... but to others, who have no idea about the full situation of our lives--which is practically everybody--we are flawed. We are flawed because we cannot be fully understood. Is there a person who has been with us in each and every moment of our lives? And this is not just talking about a physical presence, but something that can hear our insides as well-- what we think and how we feel? Because that's the most important ingredient of the kind of people that we are today.

No, there is nobody.

And that's what's scary about gossip. We can misjudge and prejudge terribly. So too can the others.

The gossip must stop.