By Charles Leyman Kachitsa
Who is my enemy? Since time immemorial the subject of one having enemies has had much attention at personal level and we can dare say at the state level. There was an era in the world history in which for most countries the punishment for the one conceived as the enemy of the state had to face the death sentence thus if they were not already eliminated using more secretive ways.
Ironically although it is natural to have enemies of sorts, at a personal level most of the enemies are your own creation either through associating with undesirable characters or through imagination. The later has also to do with attitudes and learning.
In psychology it is possible to create ones enemies through our thought process. Sometimes we imagine one is our enemy whilst that’s not the case and depending on the exercise of the mind the reactions could be extreme or controlled. Nature has it’s own way of teaching people this aspect since when we are growing in a normal way there will be time you imagine and believe your parents are your enemy. That period of practice may last up to 8 years to most thus during their teen years, however for some it may be something that they keep on for the rest of their life believing their parents are their major enemy. The circumstance for this transition of life has to do with good attitude and behaviour management on both the child and the parents. Learning, experience and maturity play a role in this.
What’s the point of examining who is my enemy? It is to point out that sometimes we are our own enemy through our destructive thoughts. Usually the thought starts as a tiny doubt, then it becomes fertilised either through gossip to some or learning for others. Learning is through association, past experience, background, environment, reading, observing and or watching such things as particular TV programs or movies. We all need to be properly enlightened on the proper way to exercise our mind otherwise you create enemies where there are no enemies.
On the other hand, you must not be naive. You must be on guide that there are some people not your enemies but wicked people who always want to bring others down. Such wicked people have no understanding that this world was built upon love and that all humans have only one enemy.
This week’s quotations is a continuation of sayings from the book we visited last week. I am sure that this being from a true story you will learn one or two things from its practicality. Read the quotations below and enjoy:
THE SPY WHO LOVED CASTRO – How I was Recruited by the CIA to Kill Fidel Castro by Marita Lorenz
“Alex became a kind of a big brother to me and we spent a lot of time together having long conversations and visiting the churches he attended, including St Patrick’s Cathedral. Mama’s family had been Quakers and papa’s Protestant but I hadn’t been brought up in any particular religion so Alex found virgin territory in me, teaching me Catholic rituals and prayers in an attempt to convert me.”
“I changed in this environment, little by little, without wanting to or, at least, without doing so consciously. I still felt more lost than ever, and I found it impossible to know if I was good or bad. Perhaps everyone was good and bad, and that clear distinctions are impossible to make, probably not a good idea and almost always wrong in a world where disinformation and two or even three sides to a situation are part of the rules of the game.”
“I thought the whole thing was absurd, illogical, mad, incredible and ridiculous, and I still think so, but what I thought didn’t matter. They left it with Rorke to try to convince me, so he and I had a second conversation then a third, then a fourth. Then he started mixing his message of a divine mission with something more earthly like money, showing me the motto on US dollar bills, ‘In God we trust’, giving me to understand that if I carried out the mission he was entrusting me, I would never have to worry about money again and my life would always be secure, at least financially.”
“After the birth and the stay in hospital, I went back to mama’s house. She had an apartment on two floors and those were some of the happiest days of my life. I was amazed by my daughter. I couldn’t stop looking at her for a second and loved her in a supremely unique way, learning and discovering something new and feeling astonished every minute of the day …. She was fabulous, the most marvellous thing I had ever experienced. She allowed me to possess her through maternal feeling, love, amazement, incredulity and the magic of knowing that this creature had come out of my body, that she was mine. I only felt this ecstasy then and, again, years later when I had my son Mark. Obviously, I had to rely on the respective fathers in both cases to create them but there are certain life experiences that belong only to women.”
