Fortissimo

I have a theory.

About 5 months ago, I grouped up with a few people to poke cruel fun at someone. This someone's only crime was to be a little imposing, a little talkative, a little insistent. Things which developed because of certain events in her life. And we greedily ate up everything she did and said, chewing it and spitting it back out viciously in the form of insults. Cruel inhumane insults.

Someone else spoke to me about all this. Someone else said stop it please, because it will come back to you. And I said ha what... I'll be the butt of the joke next time? And he said yes. You will. Now stop it.

But the hell with him, I said. Fucking preacher. There is no such thing as retribution. It's just silly talk.

Then the someone found out about us poking her behind her back. And when I heard her response, I was moved to apologising to her. Much to the chagrin of the people whom I had grouped with. I made an effort to stop poking fun at her, but when the group did, I laughed along, and I said nothing, and I didn't try to stop them from doing so. Well, not much anyway.

Back to the present. My life couldn't be going any better. And whoops. From nowhere, the arrow I fired so long ago at this someone, came from the back, and struck me through my heart before I could even yell ouch.

See, the same group of people I teamed with, the ones I had come to know as genuine friends, turned against me.

And I can only think now, that the hurt I am experiencing, is peas compared to what that someone suffered.

So conclusion number one:
What goes around comes around, what goes up must come down.

Now here's something interesting as well. This isn't the first time, or second, or even third time, that I've gotten this sort of shit. I've gotten it all my life, friends turning on me.

Logically, by the principle of Pavlov's classical conditioning, I would change to expect all 'friends' to be like that. I would be wary and absurdly defensive to everyone. I would become reclusive. I might become violent. I may bully people, make fun of them, pick on people to make them scared of me, so that the fear I create will prevent me from ever being made fun of again.

So why don't I do that? Why do I cry, and then forgive people the next day? Why do I tell them it's alright, when it's not?

Is it a blessing or a curse that I don't hold grudges?