I don’t like gossip. Gossip is filth. Anyone who carries it is a spreader of disease. Even if you just hear something somewhere and say something to someone, even if it’s just a little bit, it is still gossip. Gossip is disgusting because by the fourth link in the chain, more than 50% of it becomes false – dirty, murky, nasty lies. It’s vile to get involved, even just by listening. It’s disgusting to swim in this muck, thinking and passing on even your thoughts – “oh, they say, this is probably not true…” And how revolting it is to wrap this floating filth in gift paper and present it to the main characters – “here, eat up, dear,” – it’s indescribable.
It has always been bad manners to speak ill of others. Discussing people (and not ideas) is not only a sign of bad manners but also a sign of narrow-mindedness. Many of us suffer from this. It’s not classy. If you talk about someone, say only good things. Because when we speak ill of someone, we form an opinion. And it’s monstrously unfair if that person doesn’t have the opportunity to explain themselves at that moment. That’s why there is a people’s court – where there is not only a prosecutor but also a defender, and often an impartial group of people with an authoritative representative (the judge) who must let the accused speak and explain their motives.
The only exception is when the person being spoken about has done something knowingly bad and does it consistently, harming others – a depraved person – and someone wants to warn those who trust him, so they don’t get hurt. But even in this case, things are very unclear, because while there are many unconscious people who do stupid things, there are very few who intentionally do harm or consciously disregard others’ interests. These are sick people, called psychopaths and sociopaths.
There are just selfish people who only think about themselves and act unfairly towards others because they don’t care. But even in this case, if several people have already verified that a person causes inconvenience to others due to stupidity, selfishness, or misunderstanding, acts cruelly or unfairly, or ingratiates themselves with others for personal gain or to boost their ego, creating a false image to extract admiration from people when they actually represent nothing, – there will always be something good about them, there will always be some reason, always a need to understand what’s going on.
Therefore, even in such cases, if someone needs to be warned, it should only be with dry facts: did this, then, harmed someone in this way. And the listener should not draw conclusions about the person without personal experience of interaction with them.
Not that I’m a model in this, but… at least I realize when I start speaking ill of someone behind their back. Or if I do criticize, I try to find reasons for such behavior, to justify or at least help the speakers understand why the person acts that way.
I know someone (man or woman, it doesn’t matter), who is very actively involved in business. In this business, they need to communicate with many people, they are a public person, and besides the usual advertising of what they do, they mostly try to promote their personality, as many business directions of their company depend on them personally. For this, the person leads a very active life on social media.
I also had dealings with them and really wanted to meet, as they painted a mysterious, even magical image of themselves – a sage in the body of a young, successful businessman. However, after meeting this person in real life, I was not just unpleasantly disappointed, I was struck by how the person did not live up to anything – literally nothing about the image they created online. Moreover, in life, they were almost the opposite – cold, arrogant, calculating down to the cent, with a razor-sharp mind, though lacking significant life experience due to youth, and therefore not just unwise but if possible, anti-wise.
After my experience of dealing with them, I thought a lot about how they treated me, and as a person with a good dose of reflection, I took a lot of responsibility for our difficulties. I couldn’t wrap my head around how the person I read about like a novel on spiritual quest was so spiritually empty and superficial in our interactions. Initially, I even thought I’d never deal with them again. Then I cooled down a bit and forgave. I’m generally very forgiving… But it didn’t end there.
Unexpectedly, from several sources, people who also dealt with this person and had almost the same impressions started to emerge – they eagerly opened up, tried to create something together, offered ideas for joint projects, and he coldly sifted through people, sucked ideas out of them, many of which he immediately or soon implemented, without giving any credit to those who gave him these ideas, and implemented them poorly and unprofessionally. After that, he coldly excluded those he considered no longer useful to his business, while continuing to maintain his “spiritual” image with those who could still be useful as idea suppliers or financially.
But older and more conscious people see through him like candy. After interacting with him, it’s very hard to continue believing in the image he creates. But even after that, when several people came to me, very upset and even angry about his behavior, I kept defending him for a long time. I couldn’t believe it was possible. I attributed it to youth, to the fact that he didn’t understand how he was treating people. I hoped until the end that he was still the person he portrayed in his social networks.
But gradually, I got involved in this wave of accusations. And the heart doesn’t lie – it always feels something’s off. Needless to say, I felt very bad. It’s wrong to speak ill of someone when they are not there to defend themselves. It’s just wrong. Morally wrong, and also energetically. After all, we are all reflections of each other, and everyone around us reflects us. And I stopped discussing this person altogether. I asked everyone who criticized him to stop talking about him.
I still occasionally come across him on social networks, see how he literally brainwashes everyone who trusts him, and there are several thousand of them. And I really want to debunk the myth about him, but it’s not my fight. What’s the point of being an accuser if those he has “fed” and who don’t know him personally won’t believe anyway, so I will become the villain. This person will get what he deserves sooner or later. While he is “feeding” those he needs for his business with sweet candies of himself. But sooner or later, people will gradually get to know him and understand what he is.
Yes, some will have to go through the monstrous disappointment I experienced. But that’s the only way to know the real truth about a person – through personal experience with them. Because we will never see the baseness of a person without understanding their supposed heights. If anything, it’s only worth talking to someone directly. And only to show what they are doing if it’s clear they don’t understand. What’s the point of telling someone they’re a scoundrel if they already know it? And if you speak to explain that someone is wrong, it should only be with love. There’s a lot of trust and closeness in that. Accusations will only close the person off and hurt them.
So don’t say nasty things about anyone. No matter what someone has done, how they’ve acted. Don’t gossip. There are many reasons behind events and a whole life of a person we don’t know. We cannot judge words and actions of a person that shock us without trying to understand. And how to understand without knowing the person? In English, there’s a saying that to understand a person, you need to walk a mile in their shoes.
We can’t do that with everyone we judge. It’s always better to try to uplift a person, develop our relationships with them deeply and upwards, sincerely confessing what troubles us about them, rather than quietly chattering about them behind their back – truth or not. There’s no kind truth in words, especially filled with emotions, that we say about others – because without knowing the whole life of that person, we cannot judge them.
And often, we can’t even understand ourselves, let alone others…
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