sticks and stones may break my bones, (but words can never hurt me... or, can they?)

Every morning I try to find time to scan through today’s morning paper. It makes me feel updated, to know what agenda the fourth estate set for the day.

Headlines, ingress and pictures give me a guideline to what will be the talk of the day.

For some time now, when I read the news, I have found myself not really paying attention to the news as such; I pay more attention to the language used.

I first noticed that more and more often the headlines are misleading… in the sense they are boosted to catch your eye, rather than tell what the story is actually about. Then I started picking up on the choice of words different journalists tend to prefer.

The thing about trifle details which are part of everyday doings, and that you see, read or hear on a regular basis and never pay any attention to, is that once you DO notice them; they overshadow the general main impression or experience.

Like… the ticking of an alarm clock. You don’t hear it, not really, as it steadily goes tic-tac while waiting for the right time to wake you up. But then, one night, you lay in bed trying to fall asleep, and there it is: “tic-tac-tic…” and your entire you gets so absorbed with the sound it makes you alert and all hope of getting some sleep is lost.

There is a good chance I am more than just a little weirde; but that resembles my attitude and relation to words.

I pay attention to words, I believe that words have the power to catalyze action. I think you can say just about anything, preventing you choose your words right. Even the worst insult can be presented so eloquently it is hard to be offended.

Subconsciously I think we all, to some degree, pick up on these nuances and react to the impact of the words we are exposed to. How you speak or write makes a difference.

When we were presented to news before, we used to discuss issues regarding the event or situation in question. Now we more and more often discuss not the event or situation itself, but social issues the journalist chose to indicate.

If the article add the phrase “ of foreign descent”, we are instantly led astray to not concern ourselves with what happened… we tend to be preoccupied with all the foreigners who have come to our country causing nothing but trouble: Regardless of why, who or how. We generalize and pull them all down.

Instead of mending our society by focusing and trying to fix what is wrong with the system, we are lured into brand marking people; blaming what is wrong on everyone else. It makes us say out loud that our society would be so much better if only we stuck to our own kind, even though we don’t actually think so.

It is sad we are not updated on news without language misguidance, which distracts us.

Maybe this is why we tend to engage less in our local community: we have learned there is such a thing as us and them: Children’s sports teams lack coaches. The Salvation Army lacks volunteers. The Red Cross miss volunteers…. The list is close to endless. Instead of getting involved, spending time healing what is wrong, but by doing that expose ourselves and perhaps prove ourselves vulnerable: we focus more and more on our own comfort, and feel smug about ourselves because, after all, WE are decent people. And while we do so, we criticize what a bad coach our daughter has to deal with, we don’t even think about what an effort he/she makes for our precious offspring.

Very seldom do we give thanks. Hardly ever do we care to tell what is right or well. We adopt the lingo from the medias where we hardly hear, see or read anything good (and if we do, it usually involves an infant or an animal… the two groups still pardoned from our negativity).

Far too often the weak, and yet exposed, groups of people in society are even further degraded… or we enhance the prejudices they already suffer from.

I am old enough to remember when a fight was won when the opponent lay on the ground. Today I have this feeling a fight is about getting your opponent to the ground so you can really hit and kick him properly. Words can do that as well.

I believe we all really want to understand, and we wish things were different… and to the better. To do that, we need to know the full story. We need to be allowed to make up our minds on issues, not on people or groups of people. We can’t make it a matter about whether we like or dislike individuals

We often experience the fourth estate, undeliberately, take side, choosing to tell the part of the story which serves their agenda or cause the best: making money by creating malcontent feelings. (Yes, being negative is a very strong drive in most of us. In example: negativity is such a strong emotion it takes 100 compliments to make up for 1 critisism.) When others are as bad as can be, we, the rest, are great! Sadly, that only inspires aggression and a dividing of people: us and them.

Looking at history that was never a good strategy to keep a society sound and healthy.