Powerful Words

Taking off from my last, I don’t have any. Powerful words, I mean. I am not an eloquent speaker and I write sad little humour pieces. However, I do enjoy reading the works of people greater than I am who’ve come up with a more impactful combination of words and also just generally exercise greater velocity on the same words better than I do. I also plagiarise them sometimes on social media posts. Or nicer, paraphrase them. Or credit them if I feel guilty. I just say to myself: it’s not like you have a huge platform and you aren’t going to infringe on their property rights.

IDK.

Moving on. I like the idea of making grand statements like society is the best of us and also the worst of us. Which is to say society is what will hold us together when we fall but also that which will not allow individual growths. Which is fine until you realise that advancements in technology and science and arts in general tend to happen when individuals grow on their own. So society will preserve and protect the conventional and reject the outlier until the outliers become the norm but that takes a long time to do so. And so society is the best and the worst of us. Lovely paradox. Lovely words when phrased thus.

Paradoxes aren’t what makes words powerful though. Words have immense potential in them to hurt and to heal. Where the absence of words itself can also mean assent, you have to marvel at just how powerful words are. 

So I’m done with that bit. I have a little nit to pick though. Let’s see if I can bring it around to words. I bet I can.

So I walk my dog. And it is true what they say that beagles are escape artists. They will find ways to escape. And one-track minded creatures that they are, it is hard to bring them back around. Which is why it is highly inadvisable to take the leash off unless you are absolutely certain you can contain your beagle – either physically or for example, if they’re with another dog that you can call to you. Proxy calls, if you will.

It’s nice to meet people who appreciate dogs, and it’s nice to meet other friendly dogs on these walks. When we meet them, we often stop so Mavena can play with them and I let the leash go as long as it can but I never take it off. Most people say: Oh you’ve got a friendly dog. But some people will add: It wants to play, why are you holding him back? Just let him play. 

Excusez-moi, dear sir (because, dear reader, it is always a sir, never a ma’am), if I let the leash off and he wanders off, will you help me leash him back again? If I let the leash go and he gets lost and doesn’t know how to return, will you help me find him? If I let the leash go and the play turns violent, will you help me contain a dog fight? If no, kindly shut your fuck up.

A nit, yes. And duly picked, as illustrated with a recent sore memory. But also conveyed to say: don’t say more than you need to say, especially if it is advisory in nature and it is to strangers. Perhaps unless it is to say something like: don’t go down this road because there’s jhum fire and you might burn in it. Then always say. But otherwise, if it is not in good faith, shut your trap. 

It’s like how people can’t simply say: she’s pretty. I know a friend of mine who are three sisters (like us, too, but this story is about them). And they all have very different facial features. And people just never simply say one of them is pretty. It is always “she’s prettier than her sisters” or “her sister is prettier than her”. Why?

Words heal. Words harm.

Very powerful.