Given the amount of “weirdness and nastiness” that has been floating around good old ‘arry’s place of late, it was quite a relief to find, by chance, some good old London common sense, over at the pages of Diamond Geezer
(note for non-Londoners, and especially non-Brits: “Diamond Geezer” is London slang for someone who is…a good bloke, who can be trusted, is reliable, and sound, you know what I mean?….. You don’t?…Oh well…)
His daily post for today, 6 March, is entitled “Are you disrespecting me?, and begins like this:
There are two kinds of people in this world – those who take offence and those who don’t.
Some people, it seems, can be offended by almost everything. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “You realise your last comment was inherently racist, don’t you?” “How dare the Government spend my taxes on that!” These people go around finding fault in everything, and then assuming it was all deliberately aimed at them. “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” “I have never been so insulted…” “Turn that bloody music off!”
It goes on a bit (go and read it)…and concludes
I’m not alone. There are a lot of us around, those who don’t take offence, but alas there are still far too many who do. If only these offended folk could learn to view the world a little more objectively, and to interact with others more calmly and rationally. Where appropriate, of course. It’s always right to stand up to bullying and crime and nuisance and verbal abuse where they exist, but there’s no need to imagine the worst in everything and to get stressed and angry about it. Stop jumping to conclusions. Get yourself a sense of humour. Learn to disagree without seething. And smile. Life may be full of annoying insensitive people, but life’s too short.
How about we give it a go, at least for the next week?
