Just because someone sounds like they know what they are talking about it doesn’t necessarily mean they do. This is especially true of anyone spotlighted in the media. Protect yourself from being sucked down the ever increasing rabbit holes by learning how to think critically,discern fact from fiction,truth from half truth and what bullshit smells like.
Always carry a pack of tissues with you, toilet paper is never guaranteed.
Say what you mean, mean what you say. It won’t half bugger people up.
No means no, not maybe, could be, might etc.
No is a complete sentence
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
People will say the most ridiculous things, out loud, because it sounded so good inside their head. That and they are applauded by the echo chamber of people they surround themselves with. Nothing will bugger them up quicker than being confronted with a counter argument to whatever stupidity they have just allowed to escape out of their mouth.
‘Let me get this straight, you think anyone over 60 should not be allowed to vote because you think they will vote the ‘wrong’ way which is to say they won’t vote the way you think they should ? Do you actually understand how democracy works and have you ever heard of ageism?’
‘Seriously, you think any man who accused of rape should be automatically found guilty and have to prove he didn’t do it because no woman would ever make a false accusation? May I give you a list of names starting with Jemma Beale and Laura Hood’
The responses will range from them trying to justify what they’ve said, claiming that isn’t what they said/meant to screaming insults at you and running away to their ‘safe space’. If they say something like ‘I don’t have to explain my myself to you’ the response is ‘Don’t have to or simply can’t?’
There is this false narrative that we should keep the peace and try not to offend. Why? Why should people be allowed to spout any inane crap they fancy and go unchallenged because they shouldn’t get their feefees hurt?
Be brave, challenge the stupid and the reasoning behind it, watch their world crumble.
IT’S A VERB TOO
I applaud people who decide not to have children for whatever reason or reasons.
Mother, Father, Parent aren’t just nouns and pronouns, they are verbs as well.
If you don’t want to do the job you shouldn’t apply for the title.
I recently turned 60. It’s a pleasant surprise to me that I have managed to exist on planet Earth for 6 decades without being arrested or committed.
I’d like to think I have used my adventures and interesting times as a learning experience but I make no claims to holding any of that elusive quality known as ‘wisdom’. For some reason it is thought just living so many years somehow instills you with a deeper knowledge of life but the truth is we all know 17 year olds who are said to be wise beyond their years and 70 year olds who still throw teddy from the pram if they don’t get their own way.
I have done my best not to offer unsolicited advice and express unasked for opinions. I have often said nothing letting people think they know what I believe rather than waste energy explaining my point of view.
Now, in honour of hitting 60, bruised, battered and still as stroppy as ever I am offering up 60 Thoughts. These are in no way intended as advice or to be taken as some sort of gospel. They are just my musings on different topics reflecting my experience and the the conclusions I came to that have helped me navigate the different terrain and conditions I’ve encountered while traveling from birth to death. Topics that include ‘NO! Is not a dirty word’, ‘Ignorance isn’t bliss it’s just ignorance’ and ‘Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it’s true’
1 – RESPECT YOUR ELDERS
As someone who apparently now qualifies as an elder I feel it’s appropriate for me to address this little platitude used and abused by people who think being older makes them fit to be in charge.
I was 6 the first time I began to cognitively understand that adults weren’t better human beings than children just because they said so. We lived in a flat above a printers shop on Commercial Street in Vancouver. At that time there were several shops with flats above them with scrappy bits of yard and an alley out the back. This is where we played, a milling herd of various children, some from the other flats some from the surrounding area. There was one woman who lived in one of the flats who went out of her way to berate us, often for things we hadn’t done and would have been impossible for us to do like constantly running up and down the stairs and stomping round the veranda just to upset her when we had been at the park all day. One day I was walking towards home with my mother when I saw her walking towards us.
‘That’s her’ I whispered’ that woman who is always mean to us and shouts at us and threatens to hit us’ What followed was a simpering display of mock affection for me and all the other children. I pulled away when she tried to stroke my hair. As we walked away I turned back to see her smugly smiling as if she has just won by getting one over on a 6 year old.
There were other events, large and small, over the next few years. My small child brain couldn’t fully comprehend what I was witnessing but I knew something was off regarding this idea of respecting people who didn’t seem to respect the rules they were trying to enforce on me. The crystallising event for me happened when I was 10 in the Grade 5 Class at what was then Philip Sheffield Elementary in Abbostford. Our teacher was a man who thrived on having 30 captive children he could gas light,manipulate and torture. He had his favourites, his targets and his audience. The school day was filled dread as you knew there would be one or two children targeted for his cruelty from belittling comments to threats of punishment to being punished often in humiliating ways. It could be you that day called out for reasons no one understood and transgressions no one had seen. On this day he decided to make an example of three boys by inflicting corporal punishment on them in front of the class. Two of the boys had committed some transgression that even they weren’t aware of doing. The first boy was chosen because he was always being punished for no other reason than this teacher hated him. He held out his hands to receive 3 blows from the strap on each palm, the leather strap being the mandated weapon of choice for school punishments. He just glared as the teacher struck, harder and harder. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t cry but his look was one of resignation tinged with hatred. This infuriated the teacher which made it worse for the two other innocent victims of his ire. This grown man put all his weight and strength into striking the palms of ten year old boys with a stiff leather strap as thick as a doubled up belt. By the time the third victim was being punished the classroom was in chaos, the two boys were screaming, children in the class were crying, some were just this side of hysterical, a couple were hysterical, at least one threw up and then one of his pets, a small quiet girl stood up and passed out. Then he started screaming at us, that some how it was our fault for him having to punish the boys and deciding to do it in front of us. I watched him and the unfolding chaos until at some point the principle finally came in, removed the teacher and screaming boys from the room and tried to restore some sort of order to the scene. That teacher never regained control of his class, no amount of trying to be kind and friendly made up for what we had witnessed, we behaved because we feared him but even his favourites were wary after that.
I never told my parents the full extent of what happened. In my mind they were no better and just as complicit in the lie as he was. They,their friends,teachers and pretty much all adults maybe older but they were not better than me. The idea that being older made you smarter, wiser was a lie and they did not deserve the respect they kept demanding of me. Though I never said it out loud my stance became and remains if you want my respect show me you are worthy of it.
My mind has never been changed. Through out my life even as an adult in my 30s and 40s people have claimed I needed to show them respect because they are older than me all while holding forth in stupidity and ignorance expecting me to just comply with what they believed and upset when I had the audacity to contradict what they were saying and/or doing.
There have been some people who I have come to respect and admire. The irony is they are never the ones demanding my respect because of their age. They command my respect because of the people they are and how they live their lives.
It is their example I have tried to follow being the older person who will listen, explain, discuss, not make assumptions or think I must be right because I am older.
Should we respect our elders? I think we should show all people of every age the same sort of respect we would hope they would show us. The more relevant point is should elders be the sort of person that can be respected? If you think being older automatically makes you worthy and that people of less years should defer to you then you don’t actually deserve the respect you crave.
For my part, I don’t want to be respected simply because I’ve managed to not die, though all things considered for me not getting dead is a pretty impressive achievement. Instead I’d like to think people respect me because I’m a person who can be looked up to even if you don’t have to look up that high.
Jo Woodward 