Tag Archives: restraint

Aqualung

dictionary with letter A

Aqualung (n): a portable breathing apparatus for divers.

There are some movies I just can’t watch.

I shall not bore you in this brief article by listing them, nor elaborating on each and every style that curries my disfavor. Let me just say that any movie where people are swimming under water, holding their breath, scares the…well, scares the salt water out of me.

Especially when people around me start trying to imitate, holding their breath also, to prove they would be able to survive the ordeal being dramatically acted out in front of us.

Let me be honest. Normally I find myself to be a generous, giving sort of soul. If you’re a dollar short, I will come along. If you need a lift to work, count on me.

But if we happen to be under water, sucking on breathing tubes and suddenly my tank goes dry, I’ll rip that mother right out of your mouth.

That’s right. It wouldn’t matter if you were my mother.

Some sort of terror of suffocating would cause me to abandon all social restraint, and Christian training, for that matter.

Upon resurfacing, breathing and seeing your body floating in the water, I would be ashamed. I might even second-guess my instinct to survive.

But I can’t even bear to watch people trying to use those tanks in a movie, or discovering that they are low on O2, and begin passing it between them like there’s a choice for the other person to survive.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this and I certainly hope I never find myself in this position. Because no one wants to play the coward in the movie, who swims away from the little girl who’s in peril.

But I guarantee you, if I were placed in such a dilemma, I would swim away … like a little girl in peril. 

Donate Button

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

Applicable

dictionary with letter A

Ap·pli·ca·ble (adj): relevant or appropriate.

Sometimes I feel like a helpless city with no defenses, being bombarded by a society which senses no responsibility for viciously attacking in the pursuit of gaining its will.

It doesn’t matter what the issue is–every advocacy group is obsessed with its own form of tunnel vision, and contends that if you do not agree with them in every principle, that somehow or another you are suffering from a phobia against their cause.

No one is stopping to ask an important question: what principle is really applicable to the ongoing sanity and peaceful coexistence of human beings?

Let me explain.

I have lots of foibles. I suppose some people would even consider them sins. I am fat, bald, somewhat lazy and silly. There are individuals who would take any one of those and isolate me off in a box for direct FedEx shipment to hell. I have no malice toward them. I do not wish that they, too, would experience a fiery end. I just think their cause is overwrought and is trumped by a greater good which is often ignored in the pursuit of these pundits proving their point.

I just believe that the only applicable statement for those dwelling on Earth and confined by mortality is “no one is better than anyone else.”

  • So on the issue of abortion, I have empathy for both mother and child, so I grant freedom for choice and discovery of restraint.
  • How about racial issues? Since no one is better than anyone else, having God color you in with a different hue doesn’t seem very important.
  • Homosexuality? Since I probably will not be joining you in your bedroom, I would rather appreciate your company in the fellowship hall.

Life is not nearly as complicated as angry pollsters and protesting advocates try to make it out to be. I cannot judge you because if I were judged by the same standard, I would be weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Therefore what is applicable becomes that which is relevant. And what is relevant is that I have no control over your happiness–only the ability to hurt you and take away your joy.

So I shall not.

“No one is better than anyone else. ”

That is applicable.

Everything else is merely conversational, aggravating bullshit.

 Donate Button

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