2084. Home Reparations
Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not
immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could
not anger, although a slight blush showed that it could pain her.
Jane Austen, Emma
A careless, mildly malicious remark, made just because you can; the sudden, fatally belated recognition that you have hurt someone helpless, someone you preferred to think beyond anyone’s power to hurt or help. You know it’s too late to undo the damage you’ve done, and it gets worse: you know that what you’ve done you might do again if you aren’t careful to avoid it.
But she’s so boring! And how could anyone so boring not know so?! She must know! Didn’t you read somewhere that being boring is a form of aggression? That’s it! Her dullness is a depth missile—a covert operation undertaken by a once proud Armada, a feeble, feasible act of hostility (feeble except for its seeming infinite persistence) performed by a Late-Hapsburg-Helpless Imperial Being, who, if she still had the ammo and army, would incarcerate you forever, rather than for the few minutes (it seems like hours), or the few hours (it seems like days), that she still has the fading savoir faire to detain you with one of her going nowhere, and so very not fast, so-called stories. That’s it! All you did was return a little bit of fire! That’s it!
But that’s not it.
Note: “The everyday phenomenon of compassion … the quite immediate participation … in the suffering of another, and hence the prevention or removal of this suffering, is that in which ultimately all well-being and happiness consist” (Schopenhauer, “On the Basis of Morals”).