Human Behavior Revisited

See? A laptop computer giveaway (practically a give away) in Virginia brings out the real us in the crowd and is another example of what I see as the behavior of the masses that proves my point that people are not basically good, but basically self-centered and well, not good. 8-)

They were lined up hours before the Apple iBooks, at fifty dollars a piece, saw the doors open to be sold to 'first come, first served'. The crowd crushed, stampeded, knocked others on the head, kicked others who were down (which were probably knocked down) drove a car through the crowd and wet their pants rather than give up their place on line. No Apple personal put a stop to it, no police arrested anyone, and except for a few people who, when interviewed were disgusted at the behavior of their fellow man, the rest justified the stomping, shoving, whacking as their right because of people trying to take force their way into the line.

It is in our nature to think of ourselves first, and lest this post come off as my seeming to place myself above such behavior, who of anyone of us has not had their ire rise when someone passed them in the emergency lane while they themselves were stuck in traffic and doing the right thing? Who has not wanted to whack someone, place an obstacle in said someone's way, or otherwise prevent a line cutter, a person without scruples taking something that doesn't belong to them, from getting away with such a thing, especially if it is something of ours, be it property, our place in a line, or anything else that makes our mercury rise in indignation at the gall of another! I know I have felt my temperature rise, and rather quickly, when encountering any manner of such persons acting in such a way. It is with great effort that I have put myself down (most of the time) to avoid acting the very same way as the offender as I try to stop them from violating my rights or taking my place! And I do mean most of the time. It is one of my prayers that it become all the time, by the grace of God, so that I do not harm someone else because I want a 'thing' so badly, whether it be a laptop, my place in line, or anything at all that is supposed to be mine and is taken by another.

I daresay that the way I try to be is the exception rather than the norm and my proof continues to make headlines, as did this Stampede story. The reason why of course is that innate thing called sin, the thing we don't like to acknowledge as a human reality. We prefer to think that people are basically good. Sure we are, if you catch us on a good day and not in the middle of a crises of any kind. I reiterate, the only reason why I am able to avoid the same behavior is that I recognize and believe that sin is a reality of my flesh, is in my heart, and is desirous to have me. Therefore I have decided to trust in the Lord to help me to address this problem of sin and He is faithful to do so. Indeed I cannot even take credit for rising above the fracas and rioting masses who've no regard for their fellow man because it is the Lord who does it for me.

I am sure that what I have just written may seem sermony, but that is not my intent. Truthfully I am just stating the facts of how I (try to) live my life and sharing in my blog what living is like for me and how I react to things and what I do about different matters, etc., and no one has to be offended because I am just me being me. 8-) I promise to, by the grace of God, extend the same courtesy to others. The golden rule is a good one: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". It works because it prevents me from giving others what they deserve when they walk all over me, disrespect me or violate my rights. If I didn't love Jesus so, if I didn't believe that God's love for me was worth His Son giving His all on my behalf, I wouldn't bother. It is love that motivates even when the return of my fellow man may be to trample me while I am on line for a fifty dollar laptop that they are intent on getting to before me; me, who was on line for hours and rightfully was in place way ahead of them. I can be indignant, I can be offended and hurt, but most of the time I don't give back what they deserve because it just isn't worth it.

Apple staff certainly could have done the sale differently to prevent injury to their customers, but judging by their comments, they just didn't seem to care. The crowd of people reacted predictably as far as I am concerned. A first come, first served, almost giving it away sale is a lethal combination that no respectable person should subject themselves to. The crowd, the masses, the riff raff; these are the people that justify the presence of such words in our vocabulary. But it usually isn't the people one may think of when they think of those words. Check out the cars some of these people drove to the sale, check out the jewelery of others; it isn't who we might think because greed, ignorance and selfishness are not atttributes of any particular class of people, not at all. It is a heart condition, which knows no social status.

I better stop now, because I truly rambled. But I simply have to post, I have to write, I have to vent, I have to share and let the words flow. Hey! Can you imagine what it would be like listening to me speak all these words aloud???? hahahaha

That is the way of people though, and each day there is an article in the news of an incident that drives the truth about how we really are, home. I hope to write about other things though, and not just this, but I couldn't resist a post in this category after reading of the stampede. And I also want to make good on my committment to utilize my blog, even customizing it like some blogs of others that I have perused during my membership here.

Lord willing, I will be back tomorrow to post another ramble. ;)