Kristen Gyles | ‘Eye water fi eye water’

You travel overseas for a four-year job opportunity that will see you earning twice your current salary. A few months after your departure, your beau, who is still in Jamaica, breaks some horrible news to you – they’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness. They need treatment, and fast, but they need your help. You start sending half your salary, based on the amount they indicate they need from you. After four long years of eating dumpling and butter for dinner, you come home to discover your beau was lying all along, has been enjoying an extended payday off 50 per cent of your salary every month, and now has a new beau. What would you do?

When you’ve been hurt, it’s easy to fantasise about revenge. But revenge is sweet in the mouth and bitter in the belly. The irony of the quest for revenge is that, while we seek revenge because we believe it will grant us closure, it actually does the opposite. It leaves us bitter and forces us to relive the original hurt.

This was demonstrated by the results of a test led by psychology Professor Kevin Carlsmith, an American researcher. The test involved an investment game in which participants were each given a set amount of money and divided into groups. The participants could make extra if they invested their money with the other members of the group. However, if a member chose to work against the group, they could increase their individual earnings, though reducing the amount the other members of the group would get.

Each group agreed that they would invest together since that was what was best for the entire team, but the researchers had one member of each group secretly work against the rest of the group. When the other members found out, some groups got to take revenge on the ‘free rider’, while other groups weren’t allowed to.

At the end of the game, the researchers had all the participants rate their feelings. Those who took revenge swore they would have felt worse if they hadn’t gotten to take revenge; and those who didn’t take revenge thought they would have felt better if they got to take revenge. To the contrary, those who did not get to take revenge were found to be happier than those who did. Those who took revenge seemed to be stuck on griping about the free loader, while the others who hadn’t got to avenge themselves had moved on.

ISN’T HEALTHY

The quest for revenge isn’t always healthy. Earlier this month, the world celebrated World Mental Health Day, and I had to reflect on whether there was any correlation between Jamaica’s high crime statistics and our psychological obsession with the need to get even at all costs and at all times, even at our own expense. I’m not referring to the people who know they are criminals. They are a case all by themselves. I am referring to the ‘normal’ people who have allowed themselves to slowly become poisoned by the vengeful spirit of revenge.

Since the unfortunate stabbing incident at Kingston Technical High School, which resulted in the death of a 16-year-old student, I came across a very disturbing video on one social media platform captioned ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth’. The woman who appeared in the video explained that if it was her child’s life that was taken, someone in the perpetrator’s family would have to suffer. “Funeral fi funeral, dead fi dead, eye water fi eye water,” she said. “My aunty a cry, your aunty haffi guh cry, my sister a bawl, your sister haffi guh bawl … .” and she went on.

She is far from being alone in her thinking. However, this very mindset accounts for a significant proportion of murders across various countries.

Criminality often starts in the mind. When one’s mind is saturated with images of how pain can be inflicted on other people who have done them harm, the mind is sick. Straight up. That is neither a healthy nor sensible way to think. Crime may partly be cultural, but it is wholly psychological. I think we can do a greater job of guarding our minds from antisocial and depraved thoughts, even when we have every right to be upset. This is a part of the mental health package, too.

ALL BE BLIND

Not so deep down, people know that if we adopted an eye-for-an-eye approach every time we were wronged, we would all be blind. However, it is easy, especially in the heat of painful moments, to indulge our desires for revenge – especially when it is felt that revenge won’t come from legitimate sources.

Revenge is the motivation for countless crimes – crimes committed by self-confessed criminals, and crimes committed by people who swear they are only bringing about some sort of justice. There are many Robin Hoods who steal from the supposedly undeserving rich to give to the hard-working poor (who sometimes just happens to be themselves); and there are many who are ever ready to swing their machetes at supposed pickpockets. All say they are promoters of justice. But, whatever plausible and heroic rationale it is that backs your crime, it’s still a crime.

Don’t become a criminal. Many have become criminals simply because they indulged one wrong, vengeful idea for a little too long.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Email feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com.