Monthly Archives: September 2018

Oops, my straitjacket is slipping . . .

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It has been a very busy week and I don’t have a post ready for Sunday so I hope you don’t mind this Blast From My Past . . .

I originally posted this in September 2013. I hope you enjoy it.

Oops, my straitjacket is slipping…

When you look up at the stars at night do you feel homesick?  Okay, okay, bad joke.  Do you know once upon a time I laughed uproariously at that joke.  I ran around and told all my preteen friends.  Yes, it’s that old.  And so am I.

As we age our funny bone seems to migrate.  For some people it ends up around the nether regions.  For others humour becomes more cerebral.  I don’t know the equation to what’s funny.  I don’t even know what makes me laugh until I am actually laughing.  When was the last time you laughed so hard there were tears running down your face?  Do you remember the knee slapping, rib tickling, gut wrenching guffaws you used to hear when a group of people got together to watch a comedy film?  I don’t, at least not recently.  The last time I had one of those all-encompassing, falling on the floor cackles was watching an old movie.

The movie was ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.  I don’t remember the movie.  I don’t even know if it was actually a comedy.  What I do remember is my boyfriend and I beating on the furniture.  We were laughing so hard we were crying.  I remember him falling on the floor and not able to catch his breath.  But I don’t remember the movie.  I remember that there was a series but it appeared to be about teenage angst (and vampire slaying) I wasn’t interested.  I had enough of that when I was a teenager! (The angst not the slaying!) Don’t get me wrong I enjoy comedy.  I’ve been known to crack a smile and even show teeth.  I just haven’t had a really good belly laugh in a very long time.

Laughter is a universal language.  It crosses borders and brings people together.  It can also alienate people and cause others to commit various forms of harm.  Of course that in itself can be funny!  But I digress.  I don’t know of any culture that doesn’t have some form of laughter.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could laugh more and shoot less?  We spend so much of our time behaving according to the narrow dictates of societal decorum that when we let loose it can be epic!  Find the time to laugh.  A really good guffaw exercises the whole body!

 

Entitled

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Do you feel entitled?

” . . .believing oneself to be inherently deserving

of privileges or special treatment.”

There are so many things that we have that we take for granted but do we deserve them? Short answer yes and no. There are things written in law that if we attain ‘ this’ we are entitled to ‘that’. That’s a good thing for a community, a society. But there are those who believe that they are entitled to more simply because they are alive. And that is both sad and annoying.

There will always be those who believe they deserve more than anyone else. There will always be those who don’t take what they deserve simply because they don’t want to be greedy. I think most of us are in between those two. But what are we entitled to?

It would be easy to say fresh air and clean water but even those come with a cost. There are people in this world that don’t have access to either. Don’t they deserve as much as we do? They do, but in this day and age we have to work to attain fresh air and clean water and then maintain them. And sometimes we don’t work hard enough. Or we do and others sabotage our efforts for reasons of ignorance and greed.

By virtue of my birth I am lucky enough to live in a country that believes I am entitled to assistance because I have a disability. I appreciate that, every day. Unfortunately there are those who think they too should be ‘entitled’ because . . . because . . . they’re lazy and greedy! There are so many abuses of the system that it is in danger of collapsing. I don’t think it ever will but it is strained. And there are those who deserve the help and are finding it difficult to get.

There are more than 7 billion people in the world and each one is an individual. I have beliefs and customs that are mine and I have no right to enforce them on another. Nor do they have the right to enforce their beliefs on me. Even if we disagree. I am a big Star Trek fan and one of the most sacred tenets in the series is ‘The Prime Directive’. I think we should all take note of it:

The Prime Directive is a guiding principle

prohibiting one group from interfering with the internal development of others.

This conceptual law prohibits using superior technology

to impose their own values or ideals on others.

 

I think we need to listen.