Trouble.... and I mean REAL trouble
Have you ever known somebody who seemingly out of nowhere got into really bad trouble? I mean, for years you think they're funny and good-natured and you don't even question that you know them and can trust them.... and then something is revealed about them that, if true, changes everything?
Tonight I was sitting down to type something on these Forums in the "An American in Taliban?" topic. I was going to write something to the effect that even if people like his family, or his one-time online buddy CommonSense, knew him as kind or funny or gentle, that doesn't excuse joining up to fight against your country.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000170"; target="_blank">here</a> is that topic.
I mention that topic only because it's relevant to thoughts that I was to have soon about a different kind of wrongdoing. As I was sitting down to my computer, my mom called to tell me something truly awful. A member of our family (not immediate family but close) has been arrested under shocking accusations -- not treason, but maybe even worse on a different scale.
I can't talk about it directly, because they're still just accusations, but it's amazing how your perception changes when you hear something like this. It's like that person becomes TWO people in your mind, and you try to make them fit together. They're so far apart, and yet you know that probably what it really means is that you were at least partially wrong (and maybe completely wrong) about what you thought about that person, how you valued them and judged them.
Has anybody else here ever witnessed somebody close to you getting in real, serious, deep trouble? I don't mean "My little brother got a DUI," I mean the kind of stuff that basically means the person's life is over as they know it.
[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: sizzle chest ]</p>
Tonight I was sitting down to type something on these Forums in the "An American in Taliban?" topic. I was going to write something to the effect that even if people like his family, or his one-time online buddy CommonSense, knew him as kind or funny or gentle, that doesn't excuse joining up to fight against your country.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000170"; target="_blank">here</a> is that topic.
I mention that topic only because it's relevant to thoughts that I was to have soon about a different kind of wrongdoing. As I was sitting down to my computer, my mom called to tell me something truly awful. A member of our family (not immediate family but close) has been arrested under shocking accusations -- not treason, but maybe even worse on a different scale.
I can't talk about it directly, because they're still just accusations, but it's amazing how your perception changes when you hear something like this. It's like that person becomes TWO people in your mind, and you try to make them fit together. They're so far apart, and yet you know that probably what it really means is that you were at least partially wrong (and maybe completely wrong) about what you thought about that person, how you valued them and judged them.
Has anybody else here ever witnessed somebody close to you getting in real, serious, deep trouble? I don't mean "My little brother got a DUI," I mean the kind of stuff that basically means the person's life is over as they know it.
[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: sizzle chest ]</p>
Comments
first, because they're hidden so well, secondly, because when they come out people are completely disgusted/shocked.
we have a family member i would happily kill (everyone else in the family feels the same way). but anyone outside our close family thinks they're a wonderful pillar of the community.
go figure. you can never know someone well enough to know what kind of dark secrets they hide.
edit:spelling
[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</p>
kinda sucks, eh?
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
Back to the subject.
Yes, perception in these things is nuts. When I was a kid I had a great friend. Everyone liked him and even the teachers. Then one day we found out that his dad was a murderer and that one of the victims had been a close family friend of one of the kids in our class.
God its horrible to be a child. The kind of abuse you give other children without even thinking of it. Thinking back at how much sh!t my friend had to take from others at the school and from others in general... and yet he hadn't done anything. But everyone associated him with his father. I also didn't know what to think anymore. I wanted to be nice to him and yet, when I tried to talk and play, he also seemed different and maybe unsure of anyone around him. He left a few months later and have never heard from him again.
[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: ZO ]</p>
<strong>I don't see why its so surprising at times in the USA. Americans are the biggest bunch of hippocrites I have ever known. Many don't even realize it... but most are. Of course... many aren't. But on a whole, they are.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ok, I'm confused. Americans are hippocrites, but they are not all hippocrites but on the whole they are? whatever dude, that circular logic needs a bit of brushing up.
As for me, yes I have had a situation like that and no, I don't want to talk about it.
Years ago, when I was in retail, one of my co-workers had a brother who decapitated his pregnant girlfriend and threw her body in the river, then fled the state. Man oh man.
<strong>Zo, it's kind of difficult to not laugh when seeing criticisms of the U.S. from someone whose deFacto government is looking to make unpopular thought and speech illegal.</strong><hr></blockquote>
wtf?