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Our parents would tell us, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words cannever hurt me." That's changed. Now you
hear: "Words can cut through you like a knife. Words can hold such venom or poison that they can damage, destroy or kill more
effectively than a physical weapon."
I can't help but think that the person who wrote this has never been cut by a knife, or seen anyone destroyed by a physical
weapon. Maybe it's just me, but lying on a couch for a few days trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I might be blind
in one eye was way worse than being embarassed or insulted or demeaned.
You will die.
Everything you love will die. So hard to write, I want the things I love to last forever
and delight my children's children's children. I want to write that all things change and take the word 'death' out of it...I
want, I want, I want.
Your character is fragile. Read 'Night' and see what good people will do to those they
love if they are hungry enough or scared enough or hopeless. Who you will be in twenty years will be as different as who you
were twenty years ago.
Social Dimensions change things. You do not work, live or love in a vacuum. Politics even
enters into SWAT operations. That's not right, but it is true.
Corollary: sometimes, to everyone else, the politics are more important than the operation. In general, reality wins
in the particular (My officers need the tools to protect themselves) and politics wins in the abstract (Officers are using
too much force, something must be done).
We put these social disconnects on the shoulders of a very few people. There are people
who deal professionally with a world made up almost entirely of things that are not the way the world should be- broken bodies
and minds and shattered families and identities.
Corollary: They deal with these things specifically so that everyone else doesn't have to.
Sub-corollary: This allows people the freedom to pretend that these broken places really don't exist or are just
like they are used to but with different looks. So that they are free to pretend that evil actions are merely "poor choices".
Corollary 2: This may be the most traumatic incident of your life, but something I do twice a week. Don't expect
me to match your emotional involvement.
We put these social disconnects on the shoulders of a very few people- and then we punish
them for adapting.
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