A Quiet Morning – Screaming Comes Later

ON A QUIET MORNING LIKE THIS ONE WHEN IT’S JUST ME AND MY COFFEE I can feel the tensions of Life sloughing off like frost off the car’s rear window.

It is 16° degrees outside, but I don’t mind it right now because it keeps some people at home and away from me.

These days it seems like most people are screaming – at one another, at the government, at the world, at themselves. When things don’t go the way they like they start to scream thinking that will make things better – “Better” being the way they want things to be. It doesn’t work of course. It never has, it never will.

Self-Delusion is so much neater than Reality.

I don’t scream. I refuse to. I’ve seen and heard enough to know that I won’t like some things and that I will like others, but screaming isn’t going to change anything except my blood pressure.

It seems to me, through my life experiences, that the people who scream focus on their noise level and not on what they are screaming about.

There are few old adages more appropriate today than, “Be careful what you wish for – you might just get it.”

I find that most of the Screamers are like dogs that chase cars. If they ever actually catch that car the question then becomes – “What now?” No matter what anyone wants, if they end up getting it, it is then their responsibility. And they fail to recognize that there are other Screamers who want to change things yet again to fulfill their wishes and desires.

I sometimes have to bite my tongue when I hear a Screamer spouting obvious nonsense. It makes me feel like I’m watching a child play with a mousetrap. They might get that little piece of cheese, but they’re going to get hurt in the process. I watch it all and no matter how tempted I may be, I stay silent. Some people have to learn the hard way.

I stay mum for another reason. Screamers insist that they want to engage me in “discussion” about their outrage du jour – and that’s not really true. I’ve tried to discuss things with Screamers and no matter what I start to say, they interrupt and start screaming as if I was their worst enemy. They don’t discuss. They don’t listen. They just wait for me to take a breath and then they launch into their favorite scream.

If some Screamer is insistent that I play target for them I have a standard response that usually shuts them up or makes them so angry that they just go away. I say to the Soap Box Orator Wannabe the following.

“My friend, I’m sure that you and I would agree on many things, and I’m just as sure that we would disagree on many others. So, if we were to try to discuss things, by the time we finished you would still be angry and you would feel stupid, And, to be honest, I have absolutely no desire to be your teacher.”

At that point I go to refill my coffee cup.

At this moment my world is very quiet. Peaceful as only an early morning can be. I know that as the day intrudes the noise level will soar. People will resume their screaming oblivious to the fact that the person standing next to them is screaming for something entirely different.

Let them scream. They find it easier than thinking and, in the long run, it is those who are quiet who will decide in which direction the wind will blow.

People are arriving now and I can see the tension in their brows and hear it in their voices.

I think I’ll go and refill my coffee cup.

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