You've probably seen that Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." It's the one where the little kid is the ultimate bully: he can read people's minds, and has the power to make horrible things happen. If he didn't like someone, one of the things he could do was "wish them away to the cornfield." Years later, the actor who played the little kid told an interviewer that, mentally, a little bit of that remains and he thinks about the cornfield when someone makes him mad.
One of the things I'm trying to work on in this life is forgiveness. I try to be as forgiving as I can, but sometimes someone will just lay into me, and I really have trouble letting go of it. For instance, a few years ago while serving as a forum moderator, I upset someone who wasn't even a participant in the original discussion, and I got this outrageously offended e-mail from this person who tried to use all this legalistic jargon on me, who tried to impress me with all this about how he'd written outraged letters to politicians and to companies to express his displeasure with things they'd done, and all that sort of stuff. Basically, it was the kind of spleen-venting I'd worked through by the time I was 25, when I finally realized the world was indeed cruel and owed me nothing, and the best I could do is realize that not every inconvenience or disappointment in life is a Constitutional Law case. I tried to reason with him, but how can you when someone acts as if "offended" is an ennobled state? After a while, I realized it was pointless, so it was off to the cornfield with him.
That's one example. There have been others through the years. Most recently, I let myself get pulled into a debate with an ideologue, one of these types who's unavoidable, who injects politics into subjects even when they're not political in nature, one of these types who likes the tussle...and one of these types who doesn't exactly go by accepted forensic standards when he wants to make a point, if you catch my drift. I got out of it when I'd said my piece and realized it was serving no further purpose, but I still felt dirty for having let myself get drawn in, especially after having seen countless times over how this person operates. Yes, there had come the moment of "that's all I can stands, I can't stands no more," and I landed my punches, but all this time later, I'm having trouble letting it go. I can't figure out if I'm madder because this person operates this way, or because I let myself get sucked into a losing proposition to begin with. To some extent, I'm still fuming about it, and I feel stupid for it.
The worst part? When someone offends me -- even if it's not something done directly to me, but even if they rub me the wrong way somehow -- more often than not, I want nothing to do with them, ever again. I talk a lot about how life is shades of gray, but I'm the first to admit I'm a phony when the rubber meets the road. When somebody does this kind of thing, I want to send them off to the cornfield. I avoid them in person, and I avoid them online, and when their names come up in conversation or even cross my mind in passing, I start to glower. In fairness, it takes something big to set me off like this, but once you get on my bad side, it's awful hard to get out. I have a longer memory than I really need for this kind of thing. I don't wish anything bad on you when you cross me, and I don't stop respecting you as a human being...but let's just say that, in certain regards, you no longer matter. And I'm not so sure that's a healthy attitude to carry through life.
Someday soon, I hope, I'll finally get it right and become proficient in sending the experience, and not the person, to the cornfield.