He said what?

What is it in people that fuels the need to gossip and spread complete fallacies? The only thing that ever comes from these rumors are trouble and hardship for those whom it concerns. People don’t seem to realize that what they think is a simple comment in passing can quickly snowball into a major problem. This is very evident in a setting such as a summer camp where a small group of people are quite isolated. It is understandable that boredom can lead to gossip, however because of the closeness that comes along with the isolation you would think that people would try to look out for each other rather then stab each other in the back. I guess its probably a case of sink or swim. If you can start the rumors and make sure there are stories about other people it will make it so that you are overlooked.

This mentality is quite dark though. I would think that people generally would want to support their friends and colleagues, especially when you work like a large family. So if we are not dark beings what draws us to gossip? How can it be redirected so that it is less harmful? What is one to do when they are the victim of the harmful gossip?

This is the issue at hand for me. Over the past few days there has been a number of things that I supposedly have done or said and now I am getting all of the slag for them, That would be fine if I had in fact done or said any of it, but of course I did not. This first one may be costing me a friendship that started last summer. I hope that this isn’t the case but the ball is out of my court. I said my peace and hopefully my friend will come around and realize that I will always be there for them and would never spread harmful rumors about them. The second one is affecting my work as someone has been telling senior staff that I have been doing things that are contrary to my duties at specific times of the day in an attempt to save themselves from getting in trouble. The problem with this is that I am getting spoken to by senior staff for things that I am not doing and all I can say in my defense is that “No I am not, and I haven’t at all this summer”…the worst part is now I am starting to wonder who if anyone can I trust. This is not how I want to spend the rest of the summer, having to second guess who I can and cannot trust. It will lead me to that angry, lonely state that I fell into every few months a few years back. Camp has been able to prevent that for the past four years but it seems like this year it may bring it on.

That being said I am managing to meet more new people and am shocked that I am already almost at the halfway point of the summer. It’s looking like that summer fling is not going to happen, but I am pretty happy about that for the first time in a long time. I am thinking it has a lot to do with the fact that I am trying to become more awakened to the situations that I am apart of rather then just experiencing them. It also has to do with my state of mind around the fact that I am going to be going through some major changes during the next year and it probably is best to do so with out being tied down so to speak. I hope to give another update soon, as it is pretty therapeutic to rant on hear rather then at someone.