Tag Archives: confrontational

Banter

Banter: (n) the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.Dictionary B

I do not know whether you’ve heard yet, or discovered it in the obituary columns, but banter has died.

The silly, challenging, comical, poking fun and sometimes nearly flirting with degrading conversations that friends once had with each other have been murdered because the movement of social media has deteriorated our interaction to, “please like me–or I hate you.”

Here is a startling statement: every piece of critique or even criticism is not necessarily meant to be confrontational.

I sometimes find myself joking with strangers in a grocery store, only to discover that they become alarmed if I even connote that they are anything short of divine.

Here’s what I know for sure–repentance is impossible if you already think you’re God.

If all your ways are righteous in your own eyes, then you will fail to realize that your emotional soul may be desperately in dissaray or on the verge of disintegration.

Introspection is what the human race requires to survive and to make sure that we don’t kill each other off.

And the best way to allow for introspection is to permit banter, which is a “safe zone,” where suggestions or ideas for discussion can be hatched without blatantly or viciously attacking another person.

Yes, long before I tell you that I think you’re an ass, I could have relieved some pressure by asserting that “even a monkey could learn how to change the toilet paper roll.”

We think we become more civilized by saying the right thing all the time, when all we’ve done is set up a situation for saying what we really feel–at the wrong time.

  • I would much rather you would joke with me than insult me.
  • I would prefer that you would poke fun at my foolishness instead of gossiping about me behind my back.

Banter is the gentle comedy we use to steer our friends in a different direction, so we don’t have to intervene … and constantly send them to rehab. 

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Appendage

dictionary with letter A

Appendage (n.): a thing attached to or projecting from something larger or more important.

After writing for more years than I dare remember, I often find myself guilty of becoming either too introspective or a bit boggled with silliness.

Not that I have any problem with introspection or silliness for that matter, but as a writer, your goal is to have readers and not just accumulation of work.

One school of thought is that most people want to read something deep and profound while another clown college contends that everything must be giggly and entertaining.

I have come to the conclusion that the true test of writing is working from an idea that is important, and using the best tools possible to carve out a message.

Maybe that’s the problem in our society today–we’ve forgotten what’s important. So what we have is a bunch of dangling appendages seeking homes on which to attach.

If all the ideas proffered in our time were traced back to an origin, they would often be considered homeless.

Therefore everything I write, feel and try to do is grounded in three central principles, and then I allow the ideas to grow like appendages from them:

  1. People are the closest thing to God we have on Earth.
  2. God is the closest thing to hope that we can muster.
  3. So we must muster the ability to get along with people so that we better understand God.

Everything else I do ends up being appendages to these three central themes. Sometimes it’s funny; sometimes it’s serious. Sometimes it’s confrontational, but it is never jaded.

For after all, the day I cease to believe in these three ideas that are important, everything I do will be a mere appendage–unattached to my own reality.

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Alcoholic

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Alcoholic: (n) 1. containing an alcoholic liquor 2. a person suffering from alcoholism.

The most difficult thing in life, in my opinion, is to balance freedom and common sense. Honestly, we do it very poorly.

When we err on the side of freedom, we indiscriminately promote ideas which are detrimental to the human family.

Likewise, when we take the other extreme of common sense, we create burdens and rules which inhibit the liberty necessary for our race to move forward.

How is it possible to allow for freedom and common sense to co-exist in the same room without both of them resorting to fisticuffs?

This is my feeling about alcohol: I have grown weary of the notion that we establish our adult sensibilities by allowing ourselves permission to drink fermented fluids which have proven themselves to be devastating to members of our earthly clan. But by the same token, prohibiting the imbibing of these refreshments is unsuccessful and unrealistic, considering that they have been around for thousands of years, and even Jesus Christ took boring water and made it wine.

I think we need extraordinarily anointed and intelligent leadership, which knows how to promote freedom while establishing common sense. Here are several questions about alcohol I have never heard adequately answered:

  1. Is it truly healthy? Are we better off having some alcohol in our lives, or not?
  2. Are there people who are just cursed to be alcoholics by their genetic configuration, or is it an acquired vice which can happen to anyone at any time, simply based upon the level of consumption?
  3. Is there an adequate alternative to alcohol which would provide stimulus without promoting drunkenness?
  4. Is it possible to be a social drinker without finding yourself in the company of those who exaggerate their need and exacerbate situations by becoming either dangerous on the highway or confrontational?
  5. And finally, how can we promote the consumption of alcohol so that our movies and our society do not present it as a rite of passage, causing younger folks to feel mature by sneaking it?

I am unwilling to concede that freedom and common sense cannot be brothers in the cause of the betterment of humanity.

I personally don’t drink and never have. It’s because the questions I listed have not been answered to my satisfaction, so therefore, rather than pursuing the ridiculous … I select the sublime.