Today, I Hate People (And I Refuse to Apologise About It—For a Change) / Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos

 

It was brought to my attention that I apologise too much. Well... not today.


Today, I allow myself to be resentful, angry, terribly sad. It’s been one of those years when you smile and remain polite as people bully you. When you refrain from swearing as you witness how low people will go to get their way, impose their ‘needs’ on you. When you make yourself ill because our society is out of control, yet politically correct. When you worry about the kind of world you’re leaving behind for the next generation.


I grew up in Annecy, France. That place nobody heard about until a man stabbed babies and children in a park. That place everyone has already forgotten about.


We moved to Annecy when I was nine years old and I left just short of twenty-one years old. I had a love/hate relationship with the town—loved the view, hated the ‘not fitting in’ part. I never felt that I belonged there and was so relieved to leave.


How wrong I was. I belonged then and still belong now.


I belong because social media threw a video at my face; a video of a man losing his mind and going on a rampage. I may do my best to understand the desperation of his situation, but will never ever empathise with anyone hurting children.


I belong because I spent time in that playground, not as a young child, but as a teen, as a babysitter, and as a mother.


Growing up in France in the 80s/90s, the news always ended with a soft touch; a baby panda born in a zoo, a Mama bear with her babies… something sweet, something good. Those days are over. Now the news is dark from start to finish because all we talk about is people.


Today, I hate people. The violence. The insanity. The complete lack of empathy or moral values. The sociopathy. The psychopathy.


Today, I hate people, and I refuse to apologise about it—for a change.

Athens - 8/6/23