kicking it old skool

Words are funny things. They have such power over our emotions and lines of thinking. I quite like Eckhart Tolle’s take on it that we have managed to distil the wonderful wide world to a few groupings of vowels and consonants, stripping these wonders of their mystique.

Today’s word that puzzles me to no end is “sorry”. It puzzles me because it’s the one word I hear often and to my mind it is beyond abused. Along with its ugly cousins, “how are you” and “fine thanks” I notice its use so often that I construct little games and snarky responses around its invocation.

For example, as of the afternoon, I have been told “sorry” no less that 35 times. I’ve even been told “sorry” while someone was coming out of the bathroom, opening the door FOR me, but just slightly blocking my way. “sorry…”, whispered softly, as if saying it loudly will just piss me off even more (or something). “Sorry” sprouts from almost every other body that almost walks into me in the hallway, and by almost a mean a good 3m. “Sorry”, said to me standing behind someone at the coffee machine, just minding my own business, waiting my turn, no biggie. But a “sorry” seemed like the right thing to say, lest I be offended for having to wait my turn. I can go on, about how it’s thoroughly abused on the tubes, but has a nasty edge to it, as in “I’m saying ‘sorry’ cus its suppose to be nice, but I fucking hate all your guts now, because the tube is cramped, and I’m in a rush as always and I’m never a bad person in real life, just on the tube and bus, honest!”. Yeah right.

I’m not entirely sure what to do about it, other than play my little games of counting the ways people have apologised for being in my awesome presence (what other conclusion can I draw??). I do enjoy responding: “as you should be!” in a loud affirmative voice and watch them shocked out of their reverie, then perplexed and confused about what I mean… further proving that they’re on auto pilot and NOT really sorry in the least.

I read a “scientific study” on how people tend to be more courteous and less selfish if when, on a sinking ship they have more time to evacuate (the example they used was the Titanic vs. the Lusitania). Apart from the fact that this can only be called a “no shit” conclusion, I felt great that their data corresponded perfectly with my findings that people in general are all in it for themselves, and that we have been lulled into little nonsense social niceties.

Sorry if that offends you…

[G], out

slice like a ninja, cut like a razor blade