so scared you can't poop

"I've always followed my father's advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble."

John Wayne

I had a young man insult something that belongs to me and mine this week. It was done with exquisite care in properly polite christianized language, but it was without a doubt fighting words. I casually took him out to the verbal woodshed and pistol whipped some healthy respect for me and mine into his consciousness. Some people might think turning the other cheek would be the Christ-like thing to do. I'm not certain they would be right, but then again I'm not certain they are wrong. But my reaction to that rude question was authentic and automatic. I am certain Christ approves of me being honest about who I am.

You see I have a personality, a voice and a face that conspires to convince people that I'm not "nice" or "kind" and perhaps I lack the sense that God gave small children. If you do provoke me, it is true that I'll probably verbally pistol-whip you without thought, because my carefully applied words hurt a lot less than the other forms of warfare! 

It helps to come from an extremely violent world, because that creates a proper awareness for the value of non-physical forms of violence. Growing up in a world where a careless look could cause extremely painful repercussions and an idle word might cause mayhem beyond even Tarantino's capacity to recreate on the silver screen. Those experiences tend to produce people who use words carefully or else it forms people who are extremely comfortable with explosive violence. That kind of gratuitous violence tends to create quietness within the average person who might be tempted to feel that insulting someone's position might be a reasonable thing to do. For the minority it creates a coiled spring of tension that must be retained at all times to ensure they are able to react fast enough when the inevitable violence occurs. That level of tension can literally cause your digestive system to malfunction or wear out over time. 

I now live in a much more peaceful world, but I am occasionally reminded that a short drive east or north would lead me back to a world where people choose to keep their mouths firmly closed and their eyes averted or else they choose to walk through life with a coil of tension so obviously visible that it literally scares the digestive byproduct out of others while slowly freezing their own. 

So while it is possible for me to see and feel a world coiled tensely in preparation for violence, my days tend to be spent in more "civilized" environments. Places where reacting with physical violence is unheard of. But hurting others with cutting remarks, bludgeoning bystanders with the trauma of hammering them with divisive questions and just slapping the room with contempt from your lofty perch of being perfectly informed about all knowledge with knowing. 

What the people who avert their eyes in the face of intimidation don't understand is just how scared the "scary" people are. It takes incredible courage to look someone in the eye and be prepared to fight for what you want to say. To saddle your urban horse each morning knowing it might lead to the last fight you will partake in,  takes courage that can literally scare the poop from moving. The young man who threw a dismissing gauntlet of contempt in my face this week had to look me in the eye before he threw that gauntlet. He had to be willing to be confrontational. I confess I silently admire his willingness to saddle up his courage and step out in fear. 

It is true that I might verbally pistol-whip you if you say something I think is offensive. But I'll probably admire you more than the other person who just lacks the intestinal fortitude to be as offensive.

This post may seem a little unusual, but then again many of my posts seem unusual. My point today is that scary people are usually as scared as you are. They have just managed to divert that fear into action and have taken Mr Wayne's advice and saddled up and ventured out into a scary world where people might hurt them just because they can. 

I saddle up..... it doesn't mean I'm not scared. But being scared doesn't mean I won't find the courage to saddle up and face you down when I feel there is a conflict to resolve. 

My piece of gratuitous advice this week in this post is for the verbally scary people out there in Christendom. I know you are as scared as everyone else. It might help ease the blockages if you would be slower to insult strangers and be slower to incite casual conflict. Too many scary people are frightening scared people just because they are trying to overcome the fear of getting into trouble. 

My contribution to helping you gain some relaxation is to be even more willing to enter conflict and be heavier and hardier at verbal conflict especially when the scary person was silly enough to choose my favorite subject to spar with. But I'll always secretly admire your courage for looking me in the eye. Even if it is just causing you to spew bowel movement while also inhibiting the same from another direction. 

Just a ramble about the contents of the Bowels whether that is internal or the external substance that too often starts verbal conflict....

I often wonder what it must be like to read my Blog.....