I collect sunrises. The picture above is today’s, July 16th, 2017, looking east over the green belt park in Carrollton, Texas. Every new day is a miracle. I am sixty years and eight months old as of this sunrise. I have six incurable diseases and am a cancer survivor since 1983. One of those diseases is diabetes, and I cannot afford to be put on insulin. There is no reason to believe I will have another sunrise tomorrow.
But I am not sad or angry. I am not afraid. I am thankful. I have lived a good life.
And here’s a secret nobody has probably ever told you before in these exact words; “Life is a miracle, and no matter how cruel it has been to you over time, or what terrible things have happened to you, the world is a better place because you have lived in it.”
Amazingly, those words apply even to Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. If you think about it, there was a backlash to all the misery, suffering, grief and death they caused. In a backhanded way, bad people make us come together, find the strength in ourselves to resist evil, and make the world better in ways it couldn’t have been if there had been no challenge or reason to do it. Think of all the heroes like Oscar Schindler that Hitler’s persecution of Jews created. Think of all the times a Satanic figure like Manson made you shudder when you confronted the darkness in your own soul, and how it made you vow to be a better person than he was. And how you kept that vow.
It seems I may have become a nudist in my doddering old age. I signed up to blog for a nudist website associated with the AANR (American Association of Nude Recreation) and suddenly I have nudist friends who are encouraging me to take all my clothes off and go camping in spite of my little pink psoriasis spots. I haven’t actually gone naked camping yet, despite the invitations. But if I continue to blog about it, I will end up having to. Even though the pay per article is pretty paltry. Hmm. I still might not. But you can’t be any more naked with no clothes on than you are when you bare your soul by writing. If you have actually read my blog, you have seen things that are well beneath the very skin of me… all the way to heart and bone. And here is the secret I must impart about all of that nakedness stuff; “People are actually naked all the time. Clothes merely make us think that we are not.”
Here’s a really important thing I have to tell you. I was a middle school teacher and actually loved it. Don’t tell the people at the Institute for Keeping Crazy People Off the Streets. They are probably still looking for me. Though I have reason to believe they may also be entirely imaginary. Teaching middle school kids will do that to you. I was an English teacher for 31 years in Texas public schools. I taught kids to read. I taught kids to write. I taught kids to laugh at Mark Twain’s story about a jumping frog and the people who bet on them. I taught kids to be amazed at the ways and words of William Shakespeare, to see language and stories as poetry and music and the “stuff that dreams are made of”. I taught them that Socrates supposedly invented school the way we do it now with teachers using the Socratic method. So I suppose, realistically, you would have to say that I taught over a thousand kids in South Texas to sincerely hate Socrates. But here’s a secret I must also tell you before I can die; “When it comes to learning about love and life and laughter, they taught me so much more than I could possibly have taught them. I loved being their teacher for the too-brief time it was my privilege to be that.”
And there you have it. Three things I had to tell you in case I croak before sunrise tomorrow. I am not saying that is what will happen. Only that it could happen. But there is wisdom in telling secrets and not carrying them with you to the grave. Or was I supposed to admit that it is actually foolishness? Now I’m not sure any more. But it is one of those.
Hurtful Words
Yesterday’s post got me thinking about how words and the power behind words can actually hurt people. They can you know. Words like “brainiac”, “bookworm”, “nerd”, “spaz”, “geek”, and “absent-minded professor” were used as weapons against me to make me cry and warp my self-image when I was a mere unformed boy. I do not deny that I was smarter than the average kid. I also recognize that my lot in life was probably better than that of people assaulted with words like “fatty”, “moron”, “loser”, and “queer”. Being skinny as a child, there was actually only one of those deadly words that was never flung my direction. Words like that have the power, not only to hurt, but even to cripple and kill.
We all stand naked at times before a jury of our peers, and often they decide to throw stones.
I try to commit acts of humor in this blog. Or, at least, acts of verbal nit-witted goofiness that make at least me laugh. I have been told by readers and students and those forced to listen that I only think I am funny, and I am a hopelessly silly and pointless old man (a special thank you to Miss Angela for that last example, used to tell me off in front of a science class I was substitute teaching years ago.) But those words do not hurt me. I am immune to their power because I know what the words mean and I am wizard enough to shape, direct, and control their power.
I have stated before that I don’t approve of insult humor (usually right before calling Trump a pumpkin-head, or otherwise insulting other members of the ruling Empire of Evil Idiots). And I don’t mean to shame others or make them feel belittled by my writing. But sometimes it happens and can’t be helped.
This blog isn’t about entertainment. I am not a stand-up comedian working on joke material. I use this blog as a laboratory for creating words and ideas. It is mostly raw material that I mean to shape into gemstones that can be used to decorate or structurally support my crown jewel novels. I use it to piece ideas together… stitch metaphors and bake gooseberry pies of unusual thinking. I use it to reflect on what I have written and what I have been working on. And sometimes, like today, I use it to reflect on how readers take what I have written and respond or use it for ideas of their own. That’s why I never reject or delete comments. They are useful, even when they are barbed and stinging. I made an entire post out of them yesterday.
I try hard myself to be tough in the face of hurtful words. You have to learn that essential Superman skill to be a middle school and high school teacher. It is there in those foundries for word-bullets that the most hurtful words are regularly wielded. The skill is useful for when you need the word bullets to bounce off you, especially if you are standing between the shooter and someone else. But I can never feel completely safe. Some words are kryptonite and will harm me no matter what I do. Some words you simply must avoid.
Anyway, there is my essay on hurtful words. If you want to consider all of that being my two cents on the matter… well, I probably owe you a dollar fifty-five.
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Filed under angry rant, blog posting, commentary, humor, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, William Shakespeare, wisdom, word games, wordplay, writing humor
Tagged as humor, hurtful words, insult humor, resisting hurtful words