To Express In Words

I’ve been challenged by people occasionally and they start telling me off because of the way I write. “Man, I like what you write and what you have to say but every time I turn around I have to stop, get a dictionary and look up the word you used!”

Sorry about that.

No. Wait a minute.

I’ll apologize when you can tell me how learning something new has endangered you, made you feel smaller as a person or physically hurt you. I write to bring a possibly advance a new thought. It’s to cast light into the darkness cloaking people’s poorly conceived attitudes, prejudices and preconceptions. I write to challenge people’s minds and drag their complacency into the light to learn what they didn’t know. If they choose to ignore what I indicate may be a problem needing exposure, then they’ve made an informed intelligent decision to remain ignorant. Ignorance is the condition of being uninformed or uneducated or of lacking knowledge or information. It’s not a sin.

But it’s shameful to knowingly remain ignorant. It can prove detrimental, dangerous, foolish and potentially deadly in some instances.

I don’t consider myself smarter than anybody. I understand some people’s embarrassment when they determine they don’t know something they feel they should know. We develop this feeling of diminished awareness and perceive it as a status of being less than equal.

It’s not true.

There’s a misconception all people are equal. They aren’t. They’re equal in rights to life and a quality of life they wish to pursue. But I’m going to tell you, as much as I’d like to be a Special Forces Operative, there’s no way it’s going to happen. I’ll never hold any NFL passing and running records nor will I climb Mount Everest.

But, most of the aforementioned have never won writing competitions or been voted one of the Best Writers in a category by their peers. I know for a fact they’ve never seen my son look at them with love and proclaim “that’s my Daddy!” I’ve got them beat there.

Words are important because of their impact, their inherent power to enliven, to embolden and to elevate the human spirit. They can also hurt, degrade and impugn the dignity of individuals as they try doing anything they feel important. The importance travels to the choices we make when we speak or write.

Communication by words, spoken and written, is a privilege reserved for the human race; so far. We do know Gorillas can use sign language but don’t have the ability to string words together in complex sentences to express complex thoughts. There are instinctive calls and mating sounds in the animal kingdom assuring the extension of the specie. Physical postures and stances signal for the purposes of initiating mating rituals in the animal kingdom.

Mankind uses words in addition to complex societal rituals to ensure the survival of the specie. We entice, allure and attract the person of our desires. We persuade, cajole, coax and seduce our choice of paramour or whomever it is we want to enchant with our presence by using words.

Knowing more of them enhances the ability of a person to get the message across efficiently.

Years ago I saw a man step in a puddle of manure (figuratively). A car salesman, he was trying to explain something to his prospective customer and referred to the man as a “master of the obvious”. The customer was insulted and came unglued emotionally. He wanted to know why the man would say such a thing to him. The salesman was aghast at the man’s response and the last I saw of them the salesman was literally running for cover under pursuit of the customer who continued to demand an explanation as to why he was spoken to in such a way.

Do you understand why?

When the salesman called him a “master of the obvious” he suggested the man was too dense to appreciate the subtle eccentricities of the product and was therefore stupid.

It’s never wanted to demean anybody. I just want to be informative.

Thanks for listening.

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