Swallowed by Ugly

Sometimes I think the world is being swallowed by ugliness. Bickering in Congress, so vitriolic they can't seem to get anything done. Bullying so despicable it drives a person to take his life. Nasty comments on the internet. Constant griping about whatever is wrong in our daily lives.

You know it's gotten pretty bad when pictures like this appear on Facebook.

Usually, I tune most of it out. But lately, I feel like I'm being swallowed by it, too. The constant griping, complaining and arguing. A lack of respect for others.

It happens all around us, so much so that it's begun to feel almost normal to me. Then, last week, I saw a story about a 14-year old boy named Jamey Rodemeyer. It was another incident of a teen who had been bullied so relentlessly, he committed suicide. Sadly, these kinds of stories have been in the news so much, even they have become almost "normal." What??

But Jamey's story especially, struck a nerve. This young man struggled to help others who might be going through the same thing. Even through his own pain, he tried to get the message out that "it gets better," until it became too much for him, and he took his own life.

Jamey's story broke my heart. It made me think that we have not progressed beyond a pack mentality.  We sense weakness, whatever makes a person different--whether it's race, religion, sexual orientation, political philosophy--and we attack like wolves, hungry to destroy whatever "stands out" and makes us uncomfortable. Whether we know it's wrong or not, sometimes it feels more comfortable to "run with the pack," rather than to stand up against it or fight it.

I didn't intend this post to be only about bullying, though that is serious enough. But bullying is just a byproduct of the pervasive ugliness.

Is it worse than it used to be, or in our world of the internet and 24-hour media, do we just hear about it more? Perhaps our high-tech world enables it to spread more quickly, a contagion of ugliness. Are we all so miserable that we need to draw others into our pack?

Whether it's worse or not, how do we stop it?

Accentuate the positive.

I still remember waking one morning as a teenager, with this strange concept flashing in my brain like a neon sign. I thought I'd made it up and was pretty darn proud of thinking of such a profound and simple statement. Of course, later I learned it wasn't my creation, but the title of a song written by Johnny Mercer in 1944. I must have heard it somewhere, sometime, and placed it in a jam-packed, disorganized drawer in my mind, labeled, "Neat Things to Remember When Needed."

For some reason--maybe it was my parents' divorce, or the loss of my first love--I pulled the phrase out of storage that morning long ago, and it has been with me ever since.

Still, even as I recite the quote, I hear a collective, "Ick," or "Oh, brother." But I don't care. It's what is needed today. Rather than focusing on all that we DISAGREE on, why not focus on what we AGREE on?

When we are uncomfortable with someone we perceive to be DIFFERENT, why not focus on what is the SAME?

When we are having such a BAD day that we have to make others' days miserable too, why not focus on what's GOOD about the day? And if you can't find something good, take a deep breath and be grateful for that breath.

There's something good--positive--in everything and everyone. Find it. Maybe then, instead of ugliness eating away at each of us, we can eat away at ugliness instead.

Synonyms for Hate

I hate crabgrass. But then, I also hate the word hate.

So, that was my minor dilemma yesterday morning, as I clawed at the small, hard, rocky patch of crabgrass I intended to replace with flowers. I was not in the best of moods anyway, having spent the previous hour trying to re-edit Broken Dolls amidst one whiney puppy (Jubie) who was not happy that she could not get into our bedroom to greet Stephen with a "good morning pounce." But he had a cold and hadn't slept well the night before, so I wanted to let him sleep in. The other culprit to my concentration was Bear, who couldn't decide if he wanted to be inside or outside.

Why not just put them outside, you might rightly ask? Unfortunately, we have a door to the outside in our bedroom, and if unsuccessful with their front door scratches and whines, they will promptly head to the bedroom door to scratch and whine - more disturbances to Stephen's sleep.

Anyway, back to hating crabgrass. Finally, I threw my hands up and decided morning was a good time to work in the garden anyway. As my writer friends might surmise, I was not very happy and figured I could take it out on the crabgrass.

As I stooped over with my weeding tool in hand, vituperatively grasping and clawing at the long strands of stubborn, virulent grass, I decided I hated it. However, that thought was immediately followed by, "Hate is an ugly word. Come on, you're a writer. You can think of a better one than that."

So, I imagined myself in Word, right-clicking on the word "hate" to get the synonyms. I thought of disdain and detest. Now that I have access to Word, here are a few that are listed:

abhorrence
detestation
odium
revulsion

Unfortunately, these are all nouns. I needed a verb.

So, in writing this blog, I checked out the "hate" verbs on the Thesaurus page of dictionary.com. Here are a few of those:

abhor
abominate
loathe
shun

I like loathe. I LOATHE crabgrass.

As I gnashed my teeth with the thought, I decided hating-loathing-resenting-disdaining, was not a good frame of mind to be in at the start of the day. So my next thought was, "Come on Jan, think of something positive."

Hmmm . . . what could be positive about crabgrass??

Here's what I came up with:

1)  A blog! There's got to be a blog in this somewhere! How long has it been since you've posted a blog anyway, you naughty girl?

2)  A simile! There must be a way to use crabgrass as a simile in your writing.

Sachi knew her Christmas present had to be hidden somewhere in that closet, and like crabgrass, her curiosity spread to the deepest, darkest corners, insistent on choking out Mama's hiding place.

Not too bad, but perhaps a little contrived.

I continued to plunge my weed claw into the rocky soil, while earthworms squirmed around with every patch of dirt and grass I attacked. Though I tried to avoid the poor, squiggly creatures, a few became casualties of my war on crabgrass.

There was another simile. Editing my manuscript - removing clichés, wordiness, awkward dialogue, purple prose - is like pulling literary crabgrass. Though it all needs to removed, it must be done with care, lest I kill the "earthworms" to the story.

Boy, oh boy. Only a writer could come up with that one. And that made me smile.