The Demon Inside

c. David Grim (taken 7/4/09)

Most of us come into contact with so many people in the course of our daily lives. We have family, friends, co-workers, and folks that we see on a regular basis without even really noticing them. It's natural to contextualize all of those among us, putting them into boxes that help us understand our surroundings.

We think we know what to expect from those we deal with regularly. If we stop to think about it for any concentrated length of time, we can probably rattle off a list of stuff we use to characterize them. Maybe we know where they are from originally, or we know what they do for money. We may know where they live. Yet all of this is surface information that merely creates a public facade. What do we really know about the internal state of those around us?

Perhaps you can say with authority that you know what you are capable of. You've probably imagined extreme circumstances, and tried to speculate about how you would act when confronted by them. But if you are honest with yourself, you likely have no idea how you'd act if your life turned on a dime. To think that you could make an informed guess about someone else's reaction is simply folly.