Following on from yesterday's poetic post - and, incidentally, there's much I've been exercised over recent days/weeks/months/years to say on the subject, including especially a still uncompleted *blogpost entitled 'Making a man an offender for a word' (awhile ago) - let me (as) briefly say (the following)...
Whenever you or I - or the very next person, for that matter - get upset/riled up/offside with anyone about anything at all, there's (get ready for my deep-seated insight, folks) always a reason why... Yep, I warned you profundity was just around the corner! But hear me out...just a little longer, I beg of you...
Yet, however utterly and thoroughly outraged you or I get/become, as psychologists and other careful students of that perennial beast, the human organism, are wont to tell us, nobody can actually 'make' you or me angry...it's ever and always a choice we make, and a decision on our part...others can only influence us in any particular direction, they are never directly responsible for our response, however legitimate that response might well happen to be...
So, yes, people - whether presidents of 'great' nations, or, for example, in/famous celebrities and entertainers of various stripes and hues, such as actors/actresses, singer/songwriters, comedians/ comediennes and even that most humble of wits, the old-fashioned (newspaper) cartoonist - incidentally, a much-underrated vocation I've ever aspired to and even plied my hand at on a few occasions over the past two decades-and-a-half or so - may well and often do offend anyone or even, on the odd occasion, pretty much everyone...
...whether through their strong, even arguably rabid, redneck views...on almost any number and variety of contentious, controversial matters...or occasionally simply through their sheer insensitivity, their complete lack of empathy for others and their legitimate feelings and sensitivities...
Or even - believe it or otherwise! - simply because they have the **odd knack of seeing things a little differently than Joe and Jane Bloggs...and in such a way that - for the most part anyway - ye 'average citizen' cannot help [***themselves], they find said observations genuinely 'funny, ha-ha'; yes, even when those (laugh-inducing) insights happen to run counter to their own (however staunchly held) political views...
Yet, I pointedly ask, even beseech (of) you, is that any real reason for you or I to get on our haunches and mount our high horse, to fly into a frenzy and whip up a fury, to get our knickers in a knot and/or organize a parliamentary petition, even - in our utmost extremity - initiate a boycott...of this, that and the next one [i.e. person/outfit]?
Well, yes and no, I suppose...depending on how deeply we feel about a particular matter and how much someone else (in their clumsiness, insensitivity or sheer stupidity) has happened to upset/rile us up...
And each and every one of those particular responses are no doubt perfectly legitimate and understandable in all too many conceivable situations especially 'these days'...
Yet if we perennially 'sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff' (according to one wag whose book upon the subject was a gift to me from a sibling years ago)...we'll doubtless wear ourselves thin, stress ourselves (and everyone around us) out, even give ourselves a hernia while contributing in a worst-case scenario to a nervous breakdown (and far worse)...
...and where will that ultimately get us or our cause or achieve for us in the long run, I mean, really?
*Posted on 17th January. N.B. also blogposts of August 25th, November 29th and December 9th/11th.
**Hence, ipso facto, they have the special gift/talent of cartooning - of 'making' folk laugh due to/through their 'unusual', perceptive and above all witty and well-drawn, 'take' upon things. Or even - wonder of wonders! - their ability to see through all the superficial dross of political spin and put their fingers on something solid and tangible, occasionally - as an inevitable by-product - destroying some of our most cherished sacred cows in the process...
**Yes, I know I should've put 'him/herself' (both being in the singular), but I happen to prefer 'themselves', however inaccurate the grammatical construction...
Whenever you or I - or the very next person, for that matter - get upset/riled up/offside with anyone about anything at all, there's (get ready for my deep-seated insight, folks) always a reason why... Yep, I warned you profundity was just around the corner! But hear me out...just a little longer, I beg of you...
Yet, however utterly and thoroughly outraged you or I get/become, as psychologists and other careful students of that perennial beast, the human organism, are wont to tell us, nobody can actually 'make' you or me angry...it's ever and always a choice we make, and a decision on our part...others can only influence us in any particular direction, they are never directly responsible for our response, however legitimate that response might well happen to be...
So, yes, people - whether presidents of 'great' nations, or, for example, in/famous celebrities and entertainers of various stripes and hues, such as actors/actresses, singer/songwriters, comedians/ comediennes and even that most humble of wits, the old-fashioned (newspaper) cartoonist - incidentally, a much-underrated vocation I've ever aspired to and even plied my hand at on a few occasions over the past two decades-and-a-half or so - may well and often do offend anyone or even, on the odd occasion, pretty much everyone...
...whether through their strong, even arguably rabid, redneck views...on almost any number and variety of contentious, controversial matters...or occasionally simply through their sheer insensitivity, their complete lack of empathy for others and their legitimate feelings and sensitivities...
Or even - believe it or otherwise! - simply because they have the **odd knack of seeing things a little differently than Joe and Jane Bloggs...and in such a way that - for the most part anyway - ye 'average citizen' cannot help [***themselves], they find said observations genuinely 'funny, ha-ha'; yes, even when those (laugh-inducing) insights happen to run counter to their own (however staunchly held) political views...
Yet, I pointedly ask, even beseech (of) you, is that any real reason for you or I to get on our haunches and mount our high horse, to fly into a frenzy and whip up a fury, to get our knickers in a knot and/or organize a parliamentary petition, even - in our utmost extremity - initiate a boycott...of this, that and the next one [i.e. person/outfit]?
Well, yes and no, I suppose...depending on how deeply we feel about a particular matter and how much someone else (in their clumsiness, insensitivity or sheer stupidity) has happened to upset/rile us up...
And each and every one of those particular responses are no doubt perfectly legitimate and understandable in all too many conceivable situations especially 'these days'...
Yet if we perennially 'sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff' (according to one wag whose book upon the subject was a gift to me from a sibling years ago)...we'll doubtless wear ourselves thin, stress ourselves (and everyone around us) out, even give ourselves a hernia while contributing in a worst-case scenario to a nervous breakdown (and far worse)...
...and where will that ultimately get us or our cause or achieve for us in the long run, I mean, really?
*Posted on 17th January. N.B. also blogposts of August 25th, November 29th and December 9th/11th.
**Hence, ipso facto, they have the special gift/talent of cartooning - of 'making' folk laugh due to/through their 'unusual', perceptive and above all witty and well-drawn, 'take' upon things. Or even - wonder of wonders! - their ability to see through all the superficial dross of political spin and put their fingers on something solid and tangible, occasionally - as an inevitable by-product - destroying some of our most cherished sacred cows in the process...
**Yes, I know I should've put 'him/herself' (both being in the singular), but I happen to prefer 'themselves', however inaccurate the grammatical construction...
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