Wordsmith
For almost my entire life, I have worked in “words”. As a teacher, I used words to explain my subjects. One of the toughest parts of teaching was to discover that the “words” that I thought were clear, concise and simple; didn’t convey the message. It was always obvious: as I explained away, I could see there was no “lights on” in the students’ eyes. They didn’t get it.
And then I’d have to stop, sometimes literally, and think of another way to say the same thing. I’d go on like that, trying some other approach, until the “lights” finally started to come on, or the bell rang, whichever came first. Coaching was the same way. I’d try to describe the physical action the athlete needed to make; to put into words they could use to visualize how to correct a flaw in the pole vault, or shot put, or sprint start. Then there just wasn’t a “light” going on, there was absolute proof. Either the kids did it, or they didn’t. And if they didn’t, I’d find another visualization, another explanation.
Motor-Neuron Response
I ran into that with my own “athletic” issues the other day. I tweaked my lower back in January, and my doctor and I decided that physical therapy would be the best option. So there I am, a gray-haired, sixty-eight year old man in running shoes and shorts and a T-shirt, trying to follow the thirty-something therapist. The best way for me to figure out the “exercise” was to relate it to some other (often ancient) athletic activity my “motor-neuron paths” still remembered. So when I was laying on my back, lifting my right leg and my left arm then reversing in sequence, I had to figure how to manipulate it. It was awkward, and I kept messing up. I didn’t feel like the athlete, or athletic coach, of days of yore. I felt like an old man.
It was the original movie, the Karate Kid, that got me through. In one of the training scenes, “Daniel-son” was standing on one foot atop a beach erosion pole, with his other knee raised and his hands in the air: the “crane” position. He then had to switch, jumping from one foot to the other, without falling off the pole. It became the pivotal point of the movie, the final kick that won Daniel the county karate championship! All I had to do was the horizontal “crane” position, with just one arm, then switch. It worked. Thank you once again, Mr. Miyagi.
Politics
Words were also my “area of expertise” in politics. In campaigns I was a good organizer and a lousy fund raiser, but what I really did was write. From speeches to position papers, letters to three-sided brochures; I was the writer. And, since it was politics, I had to write in the “voice” of my candidate or “boss”. A speech I wrote is in the Congressional Record, delivered by my Congressman in the 1970’s. I was very proud. That’s the good news. The bad news: it was introducing a bill to ban abortion nationwide: “his voice” in my words.
Yes, he was a Democrat. No, in those days the Democratic Party contained both pro-choice and pro-life members. It wasn’t the absolute “litmus test” of today. I could work for a pro-life Democrat and not agree with him. It didn’t “betray” my moral views, or lose my “Democrat-ness”. Things have changed in half a century.
So I try to be careful with words. I am very much aware that in our current age of division, words are the “weapons of choice”. It’s clear that what I write may go against what other’s believe. I try, at least I think I try; not to use my words to attack personally, but to highlight the flaws politically, morally and historically. I expect criticism, because I often talk about controversial subjects.
Values
And one of the “values” of my writing today is the same one I had in the classroom. Maybe, in the depths of what I write, the “light goes on” for someone else. We are so firmly entrenched in our “sides” that it’s difficult to think I’m going to change someone who; “I can see by your coat my friend you’re from the other side,” (Stephen Stills wrote that). But maybe they’ll at least see the value in the argument. Maybe the “light” will be the sun peaking over the horizon on a cloudy day, or a view of Lincoln’s “dark and indefinite shore”. That’s the hope.
But for some, maybe many today, there is no such hope. Words have power. When an adult “grown-ass man” uses profanity to describe me, publicly, it probably time to move on. It would be one thing, at least more “courageous”, to do so to my face (or directly to me on Facebook, in the keyboard version of face to face). But to describe me to others as a “Liberal-#%@#”, using a profanity that even I don’t use, ever; well that’s enough.
I’d have kicked him out of class, or off the team, for it. But I hated doing that, it was tantamount to failing. In our modern social-media world, anyone can say anything from behind the keyboard. My usual standard is to take everything, until someone calls me “treasonous”. But I’m not “taking” this one. I kicked him out of class. He’s off the team. He’s deleted, defriended, blocked; across the broad spectrum of online communication. I’ve given up.
And I’m sad about it.
