'Tis the season to be holy, happy and positive. Granted. But sometimes it helps put into better perspective what you like when you remember what you don't...!
Herewith some life-long dis-likes. Small burrs under the saddle of my post-Eden joy, pimples on the seat of my spiritual progress. Come let us together re-count the ways:
* Headlines, which gleefully herald the most vile human action of the day
* Tags, those hypocritical little smiley-stories at the end of the gory newscast
* Candlelight vigils, not only featured but usually posed by the media
* Index fingers, arrogantly jabbing the air after each and every accomplishment no matter how small
* Health reports, because no two ever agree therefore leaving us sicker than ever with confusion
* Sealed plastic, man's evil design from protecting things to making them totally inaccessible
* Automated phone lines, insisting every 15 seconds how important this call is to them
The best unused antidote I've discovered for such annoyances is try imaging the person behind the annoyance. Yes, there really are good and decent human beings involved in each of these petty irritations. People who are simply doing what they're paid to do. No better and no worse than me. It all comes down to that very appropriate Golden Rule.
The one big problem with this Rule, though, is it's never quite as satisfying to love my neighbor as it is to complain about him. Which only goes to prove the congenitally nasty side to human nature. Well, at least mine ever since I learned there was no Great Pumpkin, no Santa Claus, and that dear Beatrix lied about Peter Cottontail.
Until second grade, my little life was rather in keeping with that of Adam and Eve in Genesis. Then one sunny day on the way to school, a wretched serpent! I can't speak for theirs, but mine was a snotty little kid by the name of Andy Vail. Ahh yes, he's the one. The one who sold me "genuine" General Custer kerchiefs and Joe DiMaggio baseballs for "only a quarter" each...the one who always tripped me going up the aisle to the blackboard...the one who possessed -- for as long as I knew him -- this dubious talent for making musical noises by cupping his armpits.
All of which I could tolerate, you see, until his contemptible revelations about Santa and Peter. (You remember the little film classic "A Christmas Story?" Andy was their prototype for the neighborhood bully!) And so to this day I attribute my dialogue of dislikes to him. Now is this disingenuous of me...? Well, I'm very much like you. I certainly don't intend to put the blame for my human shortcomings on me when Adams and Eve have the serpent and I've got Andy....
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My list of dislikes is far longer than yours. But maybe I'll try your "imaging" idea
ReplyDeleteHmmm, a name out of the past. I could not remember why he was facing at the oblique in the class photo. Was it a football injury or did someone who tired of his thrusts whack him? At any rate, there are class bullies now but we had ours also! As to those pimples, my favorites too!
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