Words don't even sting anymore. Sticks and stones may break my bones and all that, yeah? That's the well-known saying anyway. An immediate thought. "You nasty little bitch. I hate you." At one time or another, I'd have recoiled at such words being screamed at me, but now.. No. I didn't even blink. It's like words can be thrown about all over nowadays. People think nothing of calling someone a bitch, a whore, a bastard or even the occasional and definitely hated C-word. People don't bat their eyelids anymore. Insults: are they only as real as the reactions they receive? Perhaps. I guess it all depends on context. I tend to have a bit of a foul mouth from time-to-time, and I'd hate to think that someone was flinching or feeling uncomfortable because of it.
Words maybe really are just words now. A few years back, if someone called me a "bitch" or a "slut" I'd have reacted. I'd probably be in tears. You're probably thinking that's a sign I've grown up in that time. Well, yes. That too. But I don't think that's completely it. We live in a world where we can scream and shout and swear and then walk away, and your words hang in the air, they don't follow you around. A moment of madness, is well, exactly that. You can scream and insult me all you like, and I'll probably take a dislike to you, but I'm not going to cry over the words you throw at me. They are, obviously, just words. We shrug them off in a way that maybe in the past, they'd haunt us, our slurs would be our acting shadows. They only mean as much as the reaction they receive and the context they are said in. Is everything getting worse in our world? So much so, that the foundations of our language are actually falling apart? Are these bitter slurs losing their meaning, are we losing our insulting touch, or, simply, are we becoming immune to verbal abuse?
Straight faced. No emotion. Let the words pass over you like a breeze of wind. Don't let words hit you. I'm not saying that words shouldn't mean anything, but I don't think they should mean everything. If I call you a horrible nasty little slut in the heat of the moment, it doesn't actually mean I think you are a slut. I know the principle I'm presenting is probably wrong, but in a way, its very true. I tend to speak before I think and then hear what I've said and recoil, shocked. Does it take a taste of our own bitter slurs to realise the impact? Do people just not take insults seriously anymore? Or really, as long as you know what context those bitter slurs are spat in, do they really not matter at all?
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