Meanness - where does it come from?

Recently, I took my small pup, Sophia, to the vet. While waiting for her to be called back, I took notice of a pit-bull-type dog and his "owner" (not a good word to me but I'll use it for the purpose of communicating). The owner kept yanking on the huge chain around the dogs neck as if dog was doing  something wrong, which he wasn't. The dog was lying down and strained his neck forward to smell other dogs, the owner yanked his chain. The dog moved from a lying position to a sitting position, the owner yanked his chain. At one point, the dog moved from a lying position to a sitting position and the man literally slapped the dog in the face. Just before I said something, the vet-tech intervened.

Immediately, the thought crossed my mind, "Where does meanness like that come from. What in a person's heart encourages such a mean-spirited act?" Then an old adage crossed my mind: "People who are hurting, hurt others."

Purposefully being spiteful or mean to another, whether animal or human, mystifies me (not that I haven't done it myself, lots and lots, but, afterward I'm mystified at myself and regret the meanness).

I've pondered the incident with the dog several days now, and something else occurred to me. Not only do people who are hurting, hurt others, but people who are scared, also hurt others. Fear, founded or not, causes people to lash out and hurt someone else.

When we're suddenly frightened, what's the first thing we do? Lash out. Strike.

It's the same mentally, emotionally, when we're scared or feel threatened, founded or not, we lash out. We strike first, to hurt another.

None of us is exempt from the potential of being mean to another human being --- not because of anything they've done but --- for no other reason than WE carry hurt with us from way back or because we're scared. All of us are capable of doing anything that's human, given the right (or wrong) circumstances.

Striking out because we're scared is an unconscious reaction. All the great spiritual teachers are in agreement that it's important for us to "wake-up" to be more "conscious" --- so we don't hurt others because we're scared. Hurting someone else only adds to the world's misery and suffering. Let's try not to do it. Let's be kinder to each other.