Jan 24, 2011

Worth of Words

Well, again, I didn't blog in a while, and some of my "incognito" readers took the chance to shower me with demands. Not complaining, only noticing! However, when your mind is locked on certain things, such as work &/or thesis, you can hardly concentrate on other matters to write, or the matters come quite unsubstantial. What can I say? I've only one brain, and that brain is segmented in to hemispheres, so there's just so much I can do.

There are indeed a few things I would like to write about. I'll stay far this time from the political arena, mainly because I'm still filling my soul and braincells with the concepts of Cicero, but also because the level of corruption seen in this country are starting to blow my mind like never before. Then again, when it comes blatant that incompetence is not necessarily due to lack of knowledge, but simply a mask for all kinds of sickening little political games to fall into place, well, it's heartbreaking. So I'll save myself from that. Instead of it, I'll do some more of the kind of blogging that has to do with people - usually things I see in people around me.

The image of the blogger has taken an interesting hue. A blogger - though it can be basically anyone - seems to be a sort of independent reporter, someone in the shadows, chased by oppresive governments and corrupt companies across the globe. Though certainly there are many who are like that, truth is that a blogger is simply some person with access to internet, a cyber place to blog and time to post. 

It never ceases to amuse me how many people - bloggers and blog readers - often give to bloggers an inflated meaning, and act as if they were the last guardians of the writen word, the last bulwark of freespeech, the last haven for thinkers, and the one way for improving the mind. I guess they haven't witnessed the horror behind the infamous "Next Blog" button. Pretention among the lines of bloggers surfaces here and there, with self-important posts and titles, in some of which you can smell that self glorifying smirt, that "this analysis I do is the best" or "here, I'm throwing you a piece of absolute truth", and let's not talk about "oh, I'm so important and I'm so famous because I've an average of 2 million comments per post", but then again, truth is that this is a mean where the blogger writes against the dark void, and sometimes the dark void replies back.

Bloggers are nothing different than any other person, specially since more and more people have blogs or blog-like things. It does make you wonder if there's a sort of correlation between the number of bloggers and the number of journal/diary keepers, specially judging from some journals. However, the point here is that bloggers basically do what we all do: use words. It's basically expression, whether you blog, publish, communicate, make a video, record a track, talk to a friend, vent at the office, you name it. Communication in all its forms is out there, and those smells we pick on some bloggers, are not the blog-scent, but the given person's scent. The blogger isn't the only self-important, self-glorifying, self-satisfied animal, but anyone can be it, and you can catch that in their words, in their attitude, in their general communication.

A problem that concerns me now - again -  is the case of people who void their words of any strenght. Those who don't keep their words, specially because by losing the strenght of their words, they also lose the strenght of their character.

Often we come around people who promise something, or threaten others with something, but that something never happens. It happens with the parents that threat with a punishment their child, and yet inspite of the kid continuing the undesired behavior, the punishment never comes. Happens with the mate who promises never again to do something the other part don't like - get late, skip classes, leave their part of the job or chores to others, cheat, do some poor job, mess with other people's lives - and yet keep doing it as if nothing ever happened. Those who promise themselves they won't take more of something - no more abuse, no more lies, no more deception, no more extra tasks, no more forgiving and supplying for the shortcomings of others, no more insults, no more bad jokes - and yet comes the next batch of ill and they take it again with only bitter complain, but no action towards effectively terminating the given situation.

Though cases can be different from one another, and the implications of them can be miles appart, the root of all of them is the same: words that are void of meaning, words that lose strenght and take away also the strenght of character. Because you can promise it aloud or silently, you can promise it to yourself or to others, the effect is the same: you lose face when you don't keep it. Yes, there are cases that are hard to push through. How can you let go of a good job just because your boss is a major s.o.b.? How can you end your marriage of Hyne knows how many years just because your husband likes to hump whores? How can you leave your family just because your sibling is a money swallowing inconsiderated monster and your folks remind your that they kept your when you were a kid and now it's your responsability to keep them in return?

"This is the last time."

These are the words of a lost soul. These are often said when they are not meant. This case reminds me of my latest former boss. Working with him was... well, it wasn't Hell, but it was true martyrdom. For nearly 18 months I endured, tried to change things, but there was no awail. I did not promise myself I wouldn't take more, I just didn't take more. It takes strenght, more than saying the words, it takes the strenght of THINKING the words and standing by them. "I won't do it" or "I won't take it" often don't make it, because such words don't contain the way to follow. Threats do, but what's the point of threatening when nothing comes out of it? When the threat is irrational or impossible to keep?

A blogger can post anything they want. A person can think and say anything they want, but what does any of that mean when there's no intention, real, throught-through intention behind it?

When you promise, keep the promise, when you speak, be prepared to stand by your words.

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