Sandra Dodd

This is friend of friend, writing on facebook, defending a position against my friend's happy writing.

-=-I aim for a balance. Not healthy in my humble opinion to be glued to a screen forsaking all other activities...-=-

"In my humble opinion" is rarely used in a humble way, and it always goes as one lump of words.  An idiom held up like a shield.

And "glued to a screen" is not normal language chosen word by word, either. Otherwise people would change the "glued" to
transfixed
or
stuck
or
adhered
or
wedded
or
rooted
or
melded or some other "stuck to" word.

And "forsaking"?  That's in the Bible and in wedding vows used since the Book of Common Prayer came out in the 1500s, I think.

So when you write, try to use your own words, one by one, with thought.  YOUR thoughts, not a magazine article's thoughts, or your great aunt's thoughts, or phrases from the child-belittling arsenal of your parents or grandparents.

I'm corresponding with a friend who is childless, depressed (usually), bi-polar (and kind of likes to brag about that as an excuse for negativity and bad behavior.   His side is mostly quotes and clichés.  He has grown accustomed to holding up these various placards to get other people to shush.  It's like the conversations old people have with little kids, what's your name, how old are you, where do you go to school.   It's a bunch of "yeah but."

So please, anyone here who is having ANY problems with relationships or thoughts, first remove the script, and the phrases you've borrowed.  Then try to think about it with light and air on it, and NEW light—the light of today, not the crappy flashlight of childhood memories.   [TORCH, for Brits.  Americans never can take a torch under the covers to read; seriously.]

If you're finding it hard to move out of negative patterns, leave the pattern AND the negativity. Step away toward actual thoughtful choices.


Sandra