Sometimes I despair of humanity

My neigbour’s mother is 84. A few days ago she went into town to do a bit of shopping. As she came out of a shop she let the door close behind her but to her astonishment a man opened the door and shouted at her down the street that she had let the door swing back into his child’s buggy. She tried to explain that she wasn’t aware of anyone behind her but he continued to yell at her. Things like ‘stupid old bag’ and far worse. She was very shaken and upset by his manner as she really didn’t know he’d been behind her. The last words he yelled at her as he followed her in the shopping centre were ‘Well, you’ll be dead soon anyway.’ *

Why are some people so vicious and nasty? Why do they have this antagonism and arrogance towards other people whom they feel are in their way, or who are vulnerable? What happened to patience, tolerance and understanding? If you have any amount of intelligence you know when something is an accident or when it is deliberate. I can only guess that some people react that way towards older people because they are afraid of getting old themselves. As indeed, that man will be old one day and so will the child in the buggy. I just hope no one treats either of them the way he treated my neighbour’s mother.

* I think if I’d got a child in a buggy, I’d be more careful around swinging doors and I certainly wouldn’t spend time yelling after someone, I’d be more concerned that my child wasn’t hurt in any way.