Page 33 - Injustice Collector

In the story, Cosmos points out how we take our spheres out of our “sack” and polish them up so that they are as vivid as the day they were made. You have heard people say, “To forget is human but to forgive is impossible.” Many people refuse to give up their anger about something that happened in the past. They also use this historical event to evaluate current situations. “He may not have meant to be ugly to you this time ... but you remember when... ”.
By “amassing” a number of injustices, you can generate a level of emotional out age, far out of proportion with the presenting event. O ften, individuals who see themselves as weak and unable to deal e ffectively with a situation use this as a way of coping. Their overreaction may be viewed as peculiar to an outsider but to them it is perfectly justified. Their overreaction may cause others to give in to them or apologize, thereby justifying their Stinky (Injustice Collecting) Thinking and reinforcing it.
Cosmos points out how injustice collectors will “compare spheres.” In the story, two squirrels compare injustice spheres about a teacher who gave them a poor grade. In this comparing, they become increasingly angry and feel justified in their belief in the unfairness of the teacher. This need to have others confirm our irrational injustice collecting is fairly common and eliminates the need to ever evaluate if our own “collecting ” is justified. Cosmos points out, “Don’t you find it interesting that they don’t think about how they ‘earned’ those grades by not studying and how pointless it is to get themselves all angry about something in the past?” There are different ways of maintaining your “injustice spheres.” Some of the squirrels in our story carry them around in a sack, easily accessible and used fairly o fen. Others hid them in a tree, not so apparent but still available.
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