Gossip

A few weeks ago someone told me they had been told something about a friend of many years of their.  His comment to me was, “I wish I had not been told that.”
The reason he said that was it highlighted a lot of dirt this person did not know.  His experience of this person had been different, and he was sorry that now his outlook would be coloured by what he had been told.
To me that is what gossip does.  It pulls down.  It highlights what is worst.  I do not know there is one person alive who does not have things they have said or done that they regret.  That act does not define them, but there is no doubt that that act did happen.  Maybe when they were at their lowest.
Yet it seems to me some have an exalted sense of self importance because they have the gos on someone.  It is so easy to feel superior to another as a result of highlighting their weakness.  Weaknesses though different in form, are common to the human race.
I know there are things I have said and done which if I could go back would not have happened.  But they did.  I ask forgiveness and move on.  Yet others prefer to dwell on mistakes as if they were the sum total of me and I know they are not.
I got to thinking about that as there was someone famous that I really like.  Yet when I read up about them, I found out that there were some that critized them and saw them in a different light.  The thing is, I had never seen what was being critized.  There is a good chance that what was being critized may have been seen by another who is predisposed to seeing them that way.  Someone looking for fault for all their own reasons but none justifiable.
I was really glad I had got to study their life before I read about them.  I really felt I was able to assess the character without any bias of another.
This is nothing like being warned by a person not given to gossip.  I have seen that.  I have seen some exhibit regularly what had been mentioned and I was glad for the heads up.
To me there is a huge difference between fair warning and being told something that just pulls down and is not something I see.
Life can be hard enough as it is without another making it harder.  I prefer to build up and be built up.