”I died”, says my friend.

Now I'm going to tell you about a friend, whose life was suddenly shattered. You never know what the drop is, at what point a human being can no longer bear it, without losing steering speed, peace, direction and even the deep feeling of love. Because you never know what a human being has already gone through with difficulty, never know what someone's life situation actually looks like, or how employed, drained, and scarred, upset or desperate fighting someone's inner life looks like – one should not be mean. You should not be mean.

We are, many of us, good at being happy just when there are reasons to be. It would be a simplification to say that many of us are good at that ” play ” happy. So it may be, but if one has been in a threatening, difficult and desperate situation, like myself, so you know that in the moments when you seem to be happy, you are also often happy. One is happy for the present, right now this is protected from everything else, waiting, before and after. You are happy for the meeting that is going on with a loved one. You are relieved and happy to be staying in a temporary mental sanctuary. So we can all seem happy, hilarious, happy in meeting another human being, but basically be hard strained mentally, exposed, or about to lose the last one, the very last force nibbled on through life. Hope is the last thing that abandons us. So we are struggling with what is possible ways forward, to a better place, hoping to approach it, maybe very soon and maybe what is now, is my last bet, then the power runs out.

So we never know how much life force a person has within him.

I have a friend who has struggled to stay, make themselves stronger, work your way to a better place. In addition to his life struggle, my friend has done a much appreciated job for more than three decades. That work has been a great help to many people. My friend has never provoked, never challenged. Life has been difficult as it often is, not least for single mothers, but she has progressed entirely on her own. Over time, however, the forces have begun to wane, but she has continued to do her best and worked diligently.

But then it happened, that her latest big task was mocked in front of all colleagues , managers and others more or less unknown to her, by some consultants who went through the business for a short time. She had never spoken to them in person, she had never seen them but was treated so contemptuously and maliciously in front of everyone that the entire staff was upset – but fell silent for fear of being the object of the next attack. The work she had done was considered so poorly done, so pointless, so stupid and ungifted that the consultants questioned the management as to how they could find a single motive to give her the space to work.

The thing is that her now before all mocked work did not have the power to influence anything in a negative direction. The consultants could have raised it with her and her bosses in a separate conversation. There was no reason to question her competence in front of everyone, talent and even criticize the managers for her work now existing. She experienced it as a personal onslaught and a deep violation. Who had not done that?

My friend was in shock. My friend started questioning everything. My friend's identity, as for so many, is deeply connected to the profession she has successfully pursued throughout her adult life. Since this happened, she has withdrawn completely from the world. She has been crying day in and day out for several months now. Nothing has been able to bring a smile, even in the depths of her. Two strangers suddenly became judges of her life, over her identity, over her motivation and future not because they criticized her work, but because they did it in such a vicious way. Getting criticism for something you have done is difficult, but my friend's got it before so it's not. That is the rudeness of how the criticism was presented. And the realization that rudeness is completely unnecessary. Maybe the rudeness is the hallmark of these consultants, maybe they have created an air of cool supremacy through it. We do not know.

My friend has since lost his job six months ago, because she could not handle it, because all that she has been and known, her identity and security in the workplace, snatched away from her.

At another stage of her life, she might have become angry instead of in shock. But now this was her last hope, her last sense of integrity and value; the work. It was taken from her in a few words and since then she has lost her appetite and has not been able to sleep. Once she sleeps, she dreams again and again nightmares about this, and when she is awake the thoughts go around, around this. She vomited all the food the first week. The mental health care she eventually sought has given her antidepressant and strong sleeping pills. She feels abandoned. Deeply abandoned. She questions her future. How should she be able to continue working? She does not want more. She no longer loves her life task. She does not love her job. She does not love life anymore. And that feeling has not changed in the six months that have now passed.

No one knows what the drop is for another human being. No one knows when the power will suddenly run out.

So do not be mean. Do not. Criticism is a part of everyone's life, but it shall not turn into wickedness. The wickedness itself all too often seems to be a kind of pleasure for those who engage in it, it is in any case never constructive.

It hit me, when I've talked to my friend about her cruel ongoing experience, how her situation is similar to that of artists.

There has been a discussion in recent months about nasty critics, and it has been shown that some critics simply find it rather amusing to formulate themselves maliciously – or carelessly judgmental. Above all, many authors have been publicly ridiculed and ridiculed for their work in recent times.

This applies to everyone who creates art. They say ”But if you take that room in public, you have to endure criticism”. Criticism is one thing. Rudeness and mockery do not make the criticism refined, indicative or thought-provoking. And if the artists are not allowed to vary in their quality without being mocked, not be able to convey what is important to them and which they and their publishers, organizers, gallery owners, producers consider valuable, without being knocked down – then the artists become even more careful. Artists working alone, which lacks a social safety net that all other citizens take for granted, who can not even get a fair sick pay, which basically everyone lives out of hand in mouth ( which has emerged during the pandemic ) is a vulnerable, exposed and an indispensable part of society. One of the artists' tasks, through all times, is to expose structures, prejudices and simplified concepts, others are to amuse, arouse thoughts, give comfort and courage. Till exempel. Or to simply be an imprint of his contemporaries, to talk to others, to meet others, not as a person, but through his personal work. And it is these people who mean so much as a group to a society that has to put up with something that no other professional group usually has to endure., public bad criticism, which in turn can make it difficult to get new assignments and consequently evil criticism has the power to deprive us of our future. Criticism is one thing, rudeness another. Whether criticism is needed or not, I do not know – on the other hand, reflective conversations about all kinds of art are needed – but rudeness is not needed.

Most people stop when they get scared. Most people get scared and feel terribly bad about being threatened, or maliciously treated. I'm thinking of my friend's experience, an experience that I consider an abuse, an unnecessary brutality, something so unexpected in the contexts she enters. When I hear her say ”I died inside. I died. I'm dead.” and draws the parallel to what all artists constantly risk and it stands to reason for me:

You should not be mean. You should not be mean. People can die from it. Do not be mean!