I went to Six Flags yesterday. Rode the bumper cars and many roller coasters. Now, at some point in the last year or so, my body has made the transition from “anything goes” to “you’re not as young as you used to be.” I’m not going to get into that here, but suffice to say, walking out of the bumper cars, I had a flash of insight into ancient wisdom: in seeking to harm others, so do I harm myself.
When you think about it, the bumper cars are a pretty good metaphor for certain aspects of dealing with others. On several occasions I found myself trying to plow full-steam into someone – my wife, a friend, someone I don’t even know – only to find that the resulting impact is just as much of a jolt to me as it was intended to be toward the other. Whether the metaphor works or not depends on whether one is willing to accept that this two-way impact occurs for not only physical collisions, but emotional and spiritual as well.
Reflections of Ryberg 