"Sticks and stones..."

Photo by Rachel Powell on Unsplash

Several years ago I tried being a third grade teacher. Butt hurt feelings about what others said was an hourly occurrence. I tried teaching the kids that saying, and they would scream back, “but words do hurt!” Ah criminy, here comes the water works…

Do words hurt?

I think the answer nowadays is yes, however that’s kind of missing the point. The point was to have a thick enough skin, where what people said didn’t matter, and then you weren’t butt hurt. And then in theory you are more happy in life, because you don’t care what others think.

There are some elements missing to this now. I think one is that you don’t care partly because you are working hard. You have to be pretty busy to ignore the noise. There are many people who are now not in the workforce.

Unfortunately, what they are now doing is spending lots of time on social media, arguing with strangers, completely anonymous. Would we say those things to someone’s face, in person? We’re pretty tough when anonymous, locked in our dwelling, behind a device.

I’m as guilty of the thin skin, maybe more so, than anyone else. I’m starting to reflect on it more, now that I’ve passed the half way point. I want to have a thicker skin.

I recently tried reffing youth soccer. You can probably see where this is headed. I’m volunteering my time, and these fathers are yelling at me from the sidelines that I missed the call, or worse, was calling it for the other team.

Most of the other circumstances don’t matter, whether I was right or wrong. I blew a gasket, and yelled back that they are welcome to do it themselves (in so many words).

This is not how you are supposed to conduct yourself as the ref, especially in front of the kids. Although I had a lot of support from other parents, I really embarrassed myself (I always have to check the spelling of that word, now I can remember it’s spelled with two s’s, as in “you made an ass out of yourself”). A ref has to have the thickest skin. Let the parents embarrass themselves. Or volunteer.

I heard a rumor that most NFL officials are lawyers during the week. That would make perfect sense. Can you image being screamed at by the personalities of the top head coaches, and by lineman weighing over 300 pounds? Or baseball umps, where people are spitting in your face because they are standing nose to nose screaming. They have to have nerves of steal, and a very thick skin.

Over the years, I was not a fan of Barack Obama’s politics. However, I hated that the other side couldn’t say one nice thing. He did absolutely nothing right? Admitting he did a few things correctly would have given that “side” some credence. I also wondered what would have happened had Obama just smiled and laughed at his critics. I’m probably being naive about the politics and extreme advertising revenue of outrage, but what would smiling have done for the image? “That’s a ridiculous notion…” and a smile. In other words, my skin is so thick, I’m not going to acknowledge your absurdities. That could be true for both sides. Trump should have done the same.

I’ve heard many comments on social media from the younger generation about how they are too self conscious to start at a gym. They think that everyone else is judging them.

I’ve spent my entire career working with people with disabilities and/or in wheelchairs. Perspective is relative. I think many of them could care less what others are thinking, and/or have developed a thicker skin.

Which brings us back to our current state of social media, and our newest edition, Notes on Substack. I have had many pleasant conversations here, but am also watching the diseases of society creep back. I’m a hard line believer of free speech, and that no one group gets to decide what is free speech. I think we need to remember that free speech is about preventing others from controlling your life. For all our faults in this country, that was the original idea.

I was a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens. He was a journalist born in England, and attained an American citizenship. Of course he was a frequent critic of this country, deservedly so at times. However, he was always pointing out to Americans how much they take free speech for granted. He had travelled the world, visiting the most dangerous countries on the planet. He rightly stated that we were the only country in the world that has this right, and we need to embrace it. Free speech is how you fight back against tyranny, however you want to define that.

Some of Notes is already getting nasty. I can thicken my skin, or more importantly, I can just ignore certain comments. Let it go.

I was starting to get into with anonymous people on social media, and generally feeling terrible. Even if I think I’m “right” or are “winning” the argument, it doesn’t matter.

I am more likely to change minds with polite discourse, even if they don’t want to reciprocate.