It’s an irrevocable, irrational emotion that creeps into our unsuspecting psyche in our earliest, most pliable years, initially directed at food, (often green in color), too-huggy relatives, scratchy clothing, bedtime and school.  It is nurtured by the overtly thoughtless behavior of family, friends and the unfiltered and unending barrage of real and fictionalized disrespect of us, one to another, on TV and film, on the InterNet, waiting in line, (any line), or trying to navigate the mean pedestrian or vehicular streets.  That it is obsessive or intentionally destructive is indignantly and universally denied upon personal confrontation and yet, the products of its manifestation, racism, sexism, religionism, nationalism, elitism…war, consume too much of our finite energy.

As a word, (verb or noun), the equivalent of which can be found in all but a handful of the Earth’s languages, it is our first taste of belligerently obstinate power that sticks like tree sap to our lives, popping up from time to time to scare ourselves and others like an evil weasel.

We are damaged goods, and the best among us, are not faring well against the incitement and vitriol of the worst.  We should all do better.