Around Christmas and Chanukah, to mark a new year, although agnostic, I am sometimes attacked by a sappy urge to forgive my living enemies, while adding up those people who have favored me with friendship. But there's a snag. The bad angel of revenge often beats my good angel of forgiveness.
In my boyhood Chicago, street feuds were more our style on 16th Street. A small example: in grade school, I was bullied by a boy my age, "Melvin". When I couldn't take it any longer, I shoved him down a flight of school stairs where he broke his leg. Result: bullying finito. Years later, researching a class reunion, I phoned him in San Diego, where, as soon as he heard my name, he angrily slammed the phone down with a curse. Ah, bliss: he remembered!
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