Tag Archives: cheer

Cheer

Cheer: (n) a shout of encouragement, praise, or joy.

She was so pretty I couldn’t look at her.

Looking at her would mean that I saw her.

Seeing her would connote that I was worthy to drink in her attractiveness.

And there was always the danger that she might see me looking, and be stuck peering at my plainness.

Her name was Deborah Lee. She was a cheerleader.

She was a cheerleader for all the right reasons–not because of school politics or because the advisor decided to grant her the position to fulfill some sort of ethnic or body-type quota.

She was pretty, personable, perky, present, plentiful and … well, perfect.

I don’t think she ever knew I lived or breathed until one day she was sitting in a corner by herself on a chilly morning. It seems that every time she was around the cold, her legs would get red and blotchy. I never noticed. But for some reason, she felt vulnerable and when I asked her what was wrong, she told me she was embarrassed about her funky limbs.

I didn’t know what to say, so as was my custom, I said something stupid. “Deborah Lee, you’re so pretty that no one would ever notice your ugly legs.”

I don’t know whether she just felt generous, but she laughed and she laughed and she laughed.

From that day forward, she actually smiled at me in the hallway and would occasionally make eye contact across the width of the cafeteria.

At least I thought she did.

I was playing on the basketball team. I wasn’t the best player. I wasn’t even friends with the best player. But I started because I was big and they thought I would scare the opposing team and get rebounds.

One day I actually got the courage to shoot at the basket instead of retrieving it and handing it off to Billy, our star player. After I made my second basket, I heard Deborah Lee’s voice, chorusing with the other cheerleaders, “That’s okay, that’s alright. Come on, Big Jon–fight, fight, fight!”

I didn’t know whether to cry or wet my pants, but water was definitely going to come out somewhere.

I was so distracted by this cheer of approval that I didn’t score another point and dribbled the ball off my foot three times.

I never went on a date with Deborah Lee. We just remained friends. She never got to cheer for me again because I never achieved that level of excellence.

I concluded that there are people who do better if their work is not cheered on and applauded.

The appreciation is too much to handle and becomes a distraction.

 

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

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Alleviate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alleviate: (v) to make suffering, deficiency or a problem less severe: e.g. he took measures to alleviate unemployment

You usually can tap a tear or draw a cheer by speaking against the evils of pain, poverty and suffering. And certainly, these nasty villains have crushing results on the weakest members of our society.

But I think you are often trying to treat the rash on your skin caused by the tumor in your heart. What we need to alleviate in order to improve the status and quality of life are:

  • Piety
  • Politics
  • Prejudice

They are the spawners of all pond scum, and therefore should be attacked for their vicious planning of the destruction of mankind.

In one stroke, piety makes us feel better than others and worse than God. It leaves us uncertain of our value, falling into a pit of pomposity to try to prove our worthiness for salvation.

Politics is the band-aid for the gaping wound which pretends to repair the breach, only to welcome deeper and deeper levels of infection.

And of course, prejudice targets an enemy who has done nothing to us other than being different, so that we might promote our own singularity as superior. It is the nastiest form of insecurity available in the arsenal of human weaponry.

Would we have war without politics, religion and prejudice?

Would there be hungry people if politicians, religionists and bigots weren’t restricting the flow of charity?

Would there be suffering if politicians were actually addressing the needs of society, churches were spreading the blanket of Jesus’ love to “the least of these,” and prejudice was dissolved and a liquidity of acceptance was poured forth?

Alleviate. Yes, I believe my job as a human being in the twenty-first century is to lessen the effect of piety, politics and prejudice, on the mind and heart of the common man.

In so doing, I will find that less pain, poverty and suffering will afflict the strangers–now acquaintances–around me.