Rancour: An Ode to A Lost Oppressor

Rancour: An Ode to A Lost Oppressor

When I nurse the hurts inflicted on me by friends and brothers within the spectre of brotherhood on so many occasions, it becomes a hard and fast law of my interaction to abhor it. Circumspection somehow replaces those he once trusted and bonded with. Well, this is both an adaptation and prudence necessary to lessen the impacts of mean men and frivolous types in my space. Releasing the hurt becomes my most exceptional weapon; it works like a bulletproof vest and quicksand at the same time. My foes get blocked and sunk by my releases.

I unconsciously start to lessen my rancour until there is not even an atom of it left in me. If adversity does not break me but bends my spirit until it develops a commanding torque of inner strength, I can rebound with refined but formidable force. Then I start to live but not by interacting with those foes who caused the rancour in the first place. It is by rancour my friends and brothers seek to control and subvert others. But I am made free by my sincere forgiveness. This freedom from rancour is a blessing to me. A blessing that comes at a cost, which is mostly heavy sometimes light. I have paid up for mine, and it was far from cheap.

It was an experience of unfair trades all the way. I was always given oysters for fish. My brothers and friends ate the fish to their fill and threw away the bones. I ate the oysters, was half full and saved up a handsome stock of pearls. It was the vulgarity of need that made my foes to routinely choose large quantities over small ones, for quality does not fit into their discrimination. Hindsight always comes too late for them. The vulgarity continues, no lessons learnt.

Rising above rancour produces a detachment that is liberating, but then life is so free. Is real freedom is but an illusion or not? Ask the rancour mongers who are attached to all they desire and reject. They would never know the answer to the question. The panopticon, the place where their oppression is centred, is their forte, but the proliferation of blind-spots has lessened their acuity steeply. Is the possession of the panopticon without rancour possible? I wish Orwell or Foucault were here to answer the question.

Rancour I neither buy or sell, not one atom nor not one iota. Rancour is best left to its peddlers and their clients. I will not at any time or under any circumstances accept rancour harpooned into my affairs despite the guile or prowess of the peddlers. If rancour is all friends and brothers have to offer, I inform them “leave me alone”. For caution sake, being without rancour is neither a guarantee against misfortune nor a shield against pain. Yet, “I want to be left alone”, you can take your rancour elsewhere – there might be people who desperately need it.

Grimot Nane