When is it evil to be quiet? When you are witnessing bullying or injustice or someone being harmed. Have you witnessed bullying and stood by and does it bother you?
I am at a dinner, invited. It turns out that the agenda is to talk a partner into staying, because she has quit. Partner one wants partner two to stay. Partner three and I are horrified and don’t want her to stay, but we do not want to say that to her. We frankly can’t wait for her to leave.
The dinner turns in to partner one and two bullying partner three. I am the newest and don’t know what to do. The next day I am ashamed and think, why didn’t I take partner three and leave? What is the matter with me?
Part of it is that I revert to childhood. I survived a complex household with people who were loving sometimes and horrid and drunk at others. Clamming up and being quiet was how I survived. But I am an adult now and I can leave. I can also speak up and say, “Stop. This is not fair. This is an ambush.”
Today’s watercolor is flowers. My mother loved flowers, had a wild and delightful garden, and painted them often. This is a small watercolor, 7 by 10 inches, no date.
I am thinking about the latest shootings. Aren’t we supposed to welcome strangers, for they may be angels in disguise? What did you stock up on during the pandemic? A gun didn’t occur to me. I bought more water filters and wished I could buy for the whole county. I bought seeds. I bought rice and beans. You can’t eat bullets and they aren’t good toilet paper either. I studied local edible plants. What did you buy? So many people are so afraid.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: nothing. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
As you rightly note, its complex. Like you, I bought beans and rice, vitamins, extra seeds and air and water filters. No guns.
If you were a child when helping your brother, how can you be blamed? Children do the best they can.
I think the adage, “Choose your fight” comes into this question. Sometimes all we can do — and the best we can do — is NOT what others are doing. People used to beat up on my brother after school so, naturally, I jumped in and beat them up. Now I know it didn’t help anything, it just gave my brother the idea that I was there to fight his battles for him, relieving him of the responsibility of caring for himself.
Yes, I think I overprotected my sister. She said our parents flipped out when she was 14, but that was the year I was gone as an exchange student. I didn’t know I was being the protector.
I get that. When I finally realized I couldn’t help my bro, and backed off, I became suicidal without being depressed. It was weird. I found a therapist and it became clear. I felt guilty, of course, but also I had a huge identity crisis because without protecting my bro, who was I?
That is complicated.
I had no idea. We humans are not simple…
It’s just insane. Day after day…