WE are conditioned to protect ourselves and hardly expected to acknowledge that there are factors affecting other humans that we may seek to avoid. This may happen because the other person speaks to themselves and stares with an accusing frown, though you have not had an exchange with that person. Or perhaps, if you’re suspicious, the hostile thing within them is angry with almost everyone—but you think it best not to ask why.

Less than a month ago, a plot with several homes was burnt down. Among the residents, there was a young lady who lived in a little cottage within the yard, suspected of paying no rent but adamant about staying sheltered. I know the brothers who grew up on that family plot. The young man who related the incident to me lives there but is not related to the Wortmanville family. He was also a paying tenant when he told me about it.

That is not the first incident of its kind, I learned. While discussing the event at home, I was reminded by my other half that such an incident had occurred in Alberttown some years ago. The residents I knew had to get out. I am unsure if that incident had any impact on the ailment that overtook a colleague of mine, who was the head of the household that had to flee the arson committed by another outraged young woman.

I am not sure that we have institutions that explore the impact of frustration and its extension into the nervous system, resulting in rage directed at the immediate world—the one accused and blamed for whatever torment. The fact is that it seems someone or something must be blamed. A person defeated by imposed consequences or betrayal at some level naturally seeks solace and closure. Some may choose resistance in some form.

We dwell in a local world where consideration must be given to the fact that narcotics also play an important role in influencing behaviour. Some of our own people must be viewed seriously in this regard. The human mind, if driven by substances or personal perceived afflictions—whether the guilty party is perceived as an individual or society—may act towards self-destruction or against the perceived guilty.

Wherever or however it manifests, we all share that platform, too.