Mercy

I get excited about words.  It is just me.  Sometimes a word lodge in my consciousness and I review it from all angles.
That happened to me just before.  It was the word mercy.  My mind went to the Roman Emperor adjudicating on the gladiatorial bouts.  I guess that was the movie “Gladiator”.  The arm would be outstretched.  Thumb up, mercy.  Thumb down, die.
I do not know if it is a truism or not but I have experienced it and seen it often enough for it to be one for me.  Often the thing that I despise most in another is what is most despicable in me.
I can be really hard on someone else.  Mercy is the last place I want to go.  They become the object of pulling down, and I act like there is no way I have that problem.  Trouble is I do.  That is why I can see it so clearly.  I am happy to provide mercy to me, but not to another.
Man do I feel like I need mercy.  I may not have killed someone or robbed someone of millions, but the need for mercy is not a matter of scale.  There is not a point where mercy is needed beyond which mercy is not needed.  Stealing five cents needs mercy as much as stealing five million.
The consequences may be greater, but the motive is the same.
One thing I do like about it though.  I do not need to be locked into not showing mercy.  It is a choice.  Every day is potentially a new beginning.  But pathways can need a bulldozer to make them a thing of the past.  I know I have needed help to make things go away.  A new beginning by its very nature means a break from the past.
People talk about yin and yang or reaping what you sow.  However it is described, it does seem to be a principal.  I see it a lot.  The way people are, attracts like kind.  It almost seems, the more I have of something, the more I get.  That for me can be both good and bad.
I talk a bit about overwhelming.  That is the way I like to deal with things.  “Just” will do, but even “just” implies a close call.  Personally I do not want some things to be a close call.  Some things I want overwhelmed so I can move on freely.
I want mercy to be an overwhelming attribute.  It was to me, and I would like to be one that refrains from unnecessary judgement, and exhibits an attribute I had no right to expect but was afforded freely to me.