Where Greatness Resides!
ELOCUTION
I’m intrigued by the way words are put together to convey ideas, sentiments, and deep emotions. I appreciate words, phrases, and quotes. I love to hear an angry person when they are in control of their vocabulary and verbally lay the ax to the root of bad ideas. I’m also excited to hear people who are equally adept at erecting the kind of noble word-lofts that even kings want to climb. And, I stand in awe of the celebratory individual with such a command of the English language that everyone wishes them to speak on their behalf.
The only thing that gets my creative energy flowing more than hearing powerful speeches, verbal duels, and passion inducing vernacular is action. Yeah, imagine that? My attention span becomes shorter and shorter as I become less and less convinced of the speaker’s commitment to what they are saying. I’ve lived too long now to play patty-cake with the idealistic rhetoric of people who think misinformation, deception, and manipulation as art forms.
Our public landscape is changing faster than politically correct terminology. Who can possibly keep up… whatever do you mean? Words are rarely innocent anymore. They are often cosmetically engineered to mean something different than their origin. It’s like dating a plastic surgeon who takes her work home with her. I still dig it. I’m just at a loss sometimes, to know which word is least likely to incarcerate me in the land of sacred spaces. Is my aggression micro or macro? Where is my shrink when I need him/her?
It’s generally accepted that words play a marginalized role. Tone and body language trump mere syllables. Hate speech, nouns and pronouns dipped in insanity, and incendiary disquisitions are most likely to get primetime play. If you have strung together a few lines or a paragraph of hope-filled solutions you should expect to be indicted for inciting a calm.
CLARIFICATION
I love to converse. Share ideas. Make peace with the lexicon pipe. Are we still capable of reasoning together? About important issues? It does seem like neighborly conversations over metaphoric picket fences might be extinct. The silence of the lambs is disturbed by peace devouring foxes. Did you get your shot? Everyone must be introduced slowly and methodically to the impediments of the common sense virus.
I look both ways but, I find myself running a lot of red lights on intolerance these days. I’m hoping for a resurgence of simplicity and wisdom. We’re now at a time when getting over an education is more challenging than not obtaining one. Who would have ever thought dropouts could actually be the more scholarly career choice? No, I’m not advocating ignorance. But, to not see most colleges have replaced education with indoctrination would be ignorant indeed!
Human beings by nature are problems solvers. It’s just that we have this habit of reinventing negative systemic attacks on our general well-being. Somewhere, deep inside each of us resides the capacity to knock it off. Is remedy to scary of a concept? How about reminding ourselves that healing is a virtuous form of revenge.
DEFINITION
I was incensed so early in life I thought anger was a part of my anatomy. C’mon! This hell-bent annihilation of diversified viewpoints is nothing short of ideological genocide. We need a renewed mind that understands liberty is impossible without restraint. Just because we can say it doesn’t mean it’s expedient that we do.
We are all going to fight for what we believe in. And, we should. But, it will serve us well to be mindful that a free-for-all lacks stability. Our self-justified speechification is eating away at the beauty of independence. The best affirmative action is personal responsibility. It’s liberty and justice for all! or not at all.
I don’t like a lot of things. But, wishing thinking produces nothing. Our country has an expanded mind…the genie is out of the bottle. We need to learn to play together before we are bewitched beyond repair. We need a “first, do no harm, approach.
Words founded us. Words define us. Words sustain us. The power of life and death are on our tongues. What we say, how we say it, and who we say it to matters. Our greatness resides in our willingness to improve!
What do you say?
Responses