Hope that Justice Remains Humane | Daily Prompt: Cringe-Worthy

Do you feel uncomfortable when you see someone else being embarrassed? What’s most likely to make you squirm?

Who revels in public humiliation?

I have yet to meet someone who says that he (or she) loves seeing someone being disgraced out in public—as long as that person is not himself (or herself). But who doesn’t feel relief, vindication, or a form of catharsis when a person gets his just desserts?

Don’t we all love karma, be it in public or private?

Admittedly, while I pity individuals who are humiliated in front of other people, I don’t feel much of the same emotion when that person who’s being punished is someone who slighted me or someone or something I care for. Emphasis on “I don’t feel much” because, sometime later on, I will get sober from this seeming drunkenness. It will dawn on me that the person is still human, even if he did inhumane things. And though I would ask for justice, I hope that justice remains humane, even if that would be a stretch.

Squirmy

What’s likely to make me squirm? In a word: suffering.

I’ve seen animals turned into road pizza or innocent creatures tortured for sport or spite. While my body never turned away from such incidents, my guts somersaulted in ways I never predicted. And if that has happened because I saw beasts killed or tormented, I feel worse when I see the same done to humans, especially when done by other humans.

Though studies and researches could discuss and explain in length why people commit such atrocities, it always leaves me perplexed and saddened.

And the only light that brightens this darkness is the reminder that, it is in these times, mercy and compassion are virtues that we, as a people and as humans, still believe and practice.