“You all know," said the Guide, "that security is mortals' greatest enemy.”
— C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress
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Consultants are rarely unkind in the same way SHOs or junior doctors tend to be. Perhaps they feel their status being threatened or see too much of themselves in medical students, but whatever the reason I often sense an air of deliberate distance or sometimes just plain rudeness in the way they act - whereas the ungraciousness of consultants is much more like the tactless indifference of a tall person who forgets to hunch
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Children have a reputation for being cruel, but I think most of the time if someone is hurt it is incidental - collateral damage. I believe there is very little malice actually present in their tiny hearts, trace amounts at most. Pride - sure. Jealousy - tons. But these things don't directly involve the desire to harm others. They are attitudes rooted in selfishness and any injury caused is technically unintentional - a second degree offence. Children cling to pride and envy as a means of self-preservation. They deploy sarcasm and cruel jokes as defence mechanisms. You wouldn't accuse a bee of being evil for stinging you. If there is one kind of misconduct we can safely convict them of I think it would be insensitivity, or a lack of empathy - which is much easier to forgive than wilful betrayal or a spiteful comment.
I think kids' egos are stronger and more durable than grown-ups, or at least less fragile. They'll say terrible things to each other and punch each other in the face and then a day later go back to being best friends. Maybe it's because when you're young, you heal so fast you hardly notice getting hurt. At what stage of development, I wonder - what physiological phenomenon is it which makes the heart so suddenly vulnerable. Or maybe as we mature our actions and words have more power. Consequently, we're no longer able to play as rough and carelessly as we did before. When we were young our muscles and minds were not yet fully formed - they were under-developed, impotent, innocuous. We couldn't have caused serious harm to each other even if we wanted to - but now that we've grown so hideously strong we sometimes destroy each other with barely a touch and by accident. Now a passing remark or disappointed look which would have in the past merely given you a bruise or a scrape on the knee cuts straight to the bone and leaves a scar.
Maybe the fact that sometime toward the end of childhood we learn to recognise our own propensity and frightful natural aptitude for wounding each other, and then realise we detest it and make an effort to outgrow it makes these kinds of injuries uncommon in adulthood. And perhaps because these injuries are so rare and avoidable we adjust our expectations and allow ourselves to be conditioned to a world without any pain or discomfort or people you don't really get along with, which is why we get so incredibly upset when we eventually do encounter them.
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