Time to get that küfe off your back

MY WORD, here we are hurtling towards the Festive Season at a rapid rate of knots – you know, the time of ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’ – and yet there’s so much anger around.

Just last week there was a story online where two golfers in Mississippi got into a post-round argument that turned into a scuffle, then a brawl and on to a fight. The result of their disagreement was that one of the men bit off his playing partner’s nose.

I could not help wondering what could have been so serious about a game of golf that it caused one person to permanently and deliberately disfigure another? After all, enemies will not spend a good few hours together playing a game of golf, so it’s obvious that these men were friends or at least cordial up to this point.

Maybe it could be that we are carrying a pent-up rage inside ourselves these days; or maybe it’s just frustration that needs an outlet in a society that is becoming increasingly unbearable. And bearing the unbearable for too long could eventually wear one down, and the cork pops.

I have a theory that we are becoming angrier because we are carrying with us the people who make us the angriest. Think about it … when you get into a conversation with a friend, does the conversation deviate to that person or people that make your life bitter, sour, a living hell?

In my opinion this could only mean that you have allowed that person – the one you despise – into your headspace, handing the throne of your mind to their rulership. I read a quote once that said something along the lines of, “Whatever you think about most, whatever you speak about, whatever you’re obsessed with, that is your god.”

In fact, I have been testing this theory for a few weeks now. I have been bringing up in conversation an unsavoury character or an unpleasant confrontation to friends and family members – situations or people I know upset them – and noting the response.

My findings in my week of casual, part-time research is that each time I do it the person I mention the negative situation or person to will, each and every single time, take the bait and go off on that tangent. They will complain, fume, rage – as if the person who offended them had just done the deed; even if the offence had happened weeks or even months ago.

It’s as if they are, unknowingly, carrying that terrible, miserable, abusive monster with them wherever they go as if they were a küfeci.

What’s a ‘küfeci’ you ask? I’ll tell you. During the 1960s, many bars in Turkey would often employ basket men whose sole purpose was to take patrons home when they were too drunk to stand up. These men worked as porters during the day and then would work as basket men at night to earn some extra cash.⁣

⁣In Turkish these basket carriers are called ‘küfeci’. By the way, to be so drunk you couldn’t walk was called ‘küfe’. There’s also a Turkish saying that goes: “küfelik olmak”, which means “needing to be carried home in a basket”.⁣

Can you imagine the job of a küfeci? Here you could have an inebriated, sick, abusive or fidgety küfe on your back, completely küfelik olmak, and you would have to lug him home, whether he was hurling abuse at you or trying to slap or punch you.

I suppose what the küfeci did was brace himself and think, not of the abusive küfe on his back, but of the extra cash he’s bringing home to his family. Yes, it pays to focus on the good when the bad clouds threaten to gather.

We need to learn that. I mean, after all, I recently read a story that proves that even monkeys can learn!

The story – whether it’s true or not I don’t know – goes:

A man walks into a bar with his pet monkey. He orders a drink, and while he’s drinking, the monkey jumps all over the place, eating everything in sight. Then the monkey jumps on to the pool table and swallows the cue ball.

The bartender screams at the man, “Your monkey just ate the cue ball – whole!”

“Sorry,” the man replies. “He eats everything in sight, the little monster. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for everything.”

True to his word, the man finishes his drink, pays and leaves.

Two weeks later, he enters the bar with his pet monkey again. He orders a drink, and again the monkey starts running around the bar. The monkey finds a bowl of peanuts on the bar and picks up a single peanut. He grabs it, sticks it into his anus, pulls it out and eats it.

The bartender is disgusted. “Did you see what your monkey did now?” he asks the man.

“Yeah,” replies the monkey’s owner. “He still eats everything in sight, but ever since he swallowed that cue ball, he measures stuff first.”

But back to my theory.

I often wonder, what if I am not such a good person after all? What if people are allowed into my life so that hopefully I can get the message that I have to change? What if the person who irritates me most is an example of what I will become, a portal to a future me, if I don’t change my outlook and attitude?

What if looking at them gives me a look into what's going on deep inside of myself?

Christian author Ellen White hinted at something like this when she wrote: “Often it is our own attitude, the atmosphere that surrounds ourselves, which determines what will be revealed to us in another.”

But it’s also as if the anger we are carrying could be a need to prepare ourselves for the next conflict. Have you noticed that when someone unexpectedly upsets you, you hype yourself up for the next time your paths cross? “Next time,” you promise yourself, “Next time they will be sorry!”

Andrea J Marsden, assistant professor of Psychology at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida, suggests that even something like seeing social media posts from your high school bully can make you feel the anxiety of being bullied all over again.

She contends that negative associations with loathing the person make you feel the need to defend oneself, and over time we learn to be more sceptical of someone's conduct than we would be if we were neutral toward them.

“In the mind, the neural connections become stronger and cause us to dwell more on the negative aspects of that person,” says Marsden. “Even if they were to do something positive, we’d pay more attention to the negative because that’s what we’ve trained our brain to do.”

This explains why we have a seemingly endless list of negative facts about people we dislike, even if our rational brain would tell us there has to be something redeeming about them.

And all the while, as we focus on not being made the victim, we embrace the methods and mindset of the abuser. Yes, I believe that by thinking of what the bad people do to us, and rehearsing it, and calculating how to get back at them, we are inviting that very darkness into our own characters.

Maybe that’s what forgiveness is. Not excusing bad behaviour, but the simple act of putting down your küfeci backpack with the raving küfe inside, and getting on with your life.