Yesterday I witnessed a man sleeping on the grass in the South Park Blocks being harassed by a trio of jock assholes. Sean and I approached the scene as it was playing it out; the jocks throwing something small at the man, maybe a rock, then throwing a sandwich at him when his response was less than the jocks had hoped for. Sean and I both wish we'd moved faster and with less hesitation, fast enough to warn the sleeping man or discourage the dumb mob mentality of this pitiful crew of douchebags. We did not. The only reward was that another witness chased them down for several blocks. The jocks tried to play it cool, but two of them ended up running off. The third broke off from his clan, turned the corner and was hunted down beyond our sight.

As a person who was harrassed a'plenty in my youth, I feel a particular kind of outrage and sadness at this kind of behavior. Sure, you can rise above it and dismiss the asswipes, but for me at least, it confirms a dreary belief. I maintain my faith in individual humans as being basically good. That good may be solid and thorough or it may be irretrievably buried under a mountain of bad. Still, I believe it exists in each isolated person. The problem is we don't live isolated from one another and the crap that I witnessed confirms that people collectively are a miserable, sheepish lot as often as they are a supportive, uplifting mass.

None of us are immune. I've had my own cruel moments, my own sheepish nods. Sean too. All we could do was shake our heads in unison with the harassed man then wander back into our day. But today all I've been able to think of is that sweet bland thing called kindness and how we should all dig a little deeper for it.