July 22, 2011
1. Newblog2011: 07/22/11 Bullying about appearance
I first put the following essay on my blog “ireallyprotest” on WordPress, this morning at the time indicated in the first copyright notice.
HOW TO TURN A PAINFUL LIFE EXPERIENCE INTO A FUNNY AND HOPEFULLY EFFECTIVE JOKE
For people who had never heard of me before this past year and who weren’t reading what I wrote online then, the joke which I put on my blog on WordPress this morning is the kind of thing that I was writing about some of my physical flaws two years ago. As I’ve said before, nobody will find those jokes online anywhere, because, at that time, I was using Friendster as a daily blog where I wrote essays, jokes or communications, and then would remove them and write something else the next day or over the next few days.
My jokes about getting older were never anything other than rueful commentary and a way of dealing with the sad and painful fact that my youthful beauty is going vamoose. That sort of joke can also be helpful for other reasons.
As far as getting older than being very youthful goes; I try to accept that I have to get old. If I had the money, I might get procedures done to fix the little things that could look better if those procedures weren’t especially invasive and didn’t involve putting artificial or permanent structures into my body. However, getting older is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s part of life for everyone and everything.
My own jokes about my aging process were pounced upon and have been the source of seemingly endless cruelty. As I’ve said before, the low opinion of consistently cruel people doesn’t mean any more to me than the high opinion of such people would. However, I think that it’s an indicator of something that is wrong with those people that they never stop trying to taunt me about my body, that they waste as much time as they do on that endeavor, spend their working hours trying to think of more ways to exploit me, and set an example for everyone watching that bullying is a good thing to do.
It’s true that there have been times over the past year and a half of non-stop harassment that I’ve made some unkind comments about the appearance of other people who were involved in the harassment. At those times, sad to say, I stooped to their level of behavior.
One thing that I didn’t make jokes about was having had gum recession which was most likely the result of having been pressured into taking psychiatric medication for years at a time when I was in my late teens and throughout my twenties. I talked about having had gum recession in order to warn other people about what can happen to them if they allow themselves to be pressured into the same kinds of things that I was pressured into doing.
That recession wasn’t a natural part of aging; it was something that could have been prevented.
It hurts, also. I’ve always had sensitive teeth, so having some of the root of some of my teeth exposed means that there are days when my teeth hurt for much of the time, even when nothing is touching them.
That was how I knew how to make my joke about desensitizing toothpaste this morning, on WordPress. Here’s a lesson for would-be writers; the more of life you live, the more experiences there will be in your memory to draw upon at times when you wouldn’t expect it, as long as you’re observant of what you’re going through and take the time to think about it. There have been a lot of good writers over the years who have said that the best writers and the ones who are most able to imagine what other lives are like are those who have lived their own lives as fully as possible. I’m not recommending making tours of mental hospitals and out-patient psychiatrists’ offices; what I’m saying is that this morning was an instance in which I could take something bad that happened to me when I was younger than I am now and use some of the knowledge that I gained from that experience to turn it into a useful joke that had more than one purpose.
Copyright L. Kochman July 22, 2011 @ 9:55 a.m. (From Word)/final edit and addition @ 10:06 a.m./really final edit @ 10:20 a.m.
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Copyright on Weebly L. Kochman July 22, 2011 @ 10:28 a.m./edit @ 10:31 a.m.
1. Newblog2011: 07/22/11 Bullying about appearance
I first put the following essay on my blog “ireallyprotest” on WordPress, this morning at the time indicated in the first copyright notice.
HOW TO TURN A PAINFUL LIFE EXPERIENCE INTO A FUNNY AND HOPEFULLY EFFECTIVE JOKE
For people who had never heard of me before this past year and who weren’t reading what I wrote online then, the joke which I put on my blog on WordPress this morning is the kind of thing that I was writing about some of my physical flaws two years ago. As I’ve said before, nobody will find those jokes online anywhere, because, at that time, I was using Friendster as a daily blog where I wrote essays, jokes or communications, and then would remove them and write something else the next day or over the next few days.
My jokes about getting older were never anything other than rueful commentary and a way of dealing with the sad and painful fact that my youthful beauty is going vamoose. That sort of joke can also be helpful for other reasons.
As far as getting older than being very youthful goes; I try to accept that I have to get old. If I had the money, I might get procedures done to fix the little things that could look better if those procedures weren’t especially invasive and didn’t involve putting artificial or permanent structures into my body. However, getting older is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s part of life for everyone and everything.
My own jokes about my aging process were pounced upon and have been the source of seemingly endless cruelty. As I’ve said before, the low opinion of consistently cruel people doesn’t mean any more to me than the high opinion of such people would. However, I think that it’s an indicator of something that is wrong with those people that they never stop trying to taunt me about my body, that they waste as much time as they do on that endeavor, spend their working hours trying to think of more ways to exploit me, and set an example for everyone watching that bullying is a good thing to do.
It’s true that there have been times over the past year and a half of non-stop harassment that I’ve made some unkind comments about the appearance of other people who were involved in the harassment. At those times, sad to say, I stooped to their level of behavior.
One thing that I didn’t make jokes about was having had gum recession which was most likely the result of having been pressured into taking psychiatric medication for years at a time when I was in my late teens and throughout my twenties. I talked about having had gum recession in order to warn other people about what can happen to them if they allow themselves to be pressured into the same kinds of things that I was pressured into doing.
That recession wasn’t a natural part of aging; it was something that could have been prevented.
It hurts, also. I’ve always had sensitive teeth, so having some of the root of some of my teeth exposed means that there are days when my teeth hurt for much of the time, even when nothing is touching them.
That was how I knew how to make my joke about desensitizing toothpaste this morning, on WordPress. Here’s a lesson for would-be writers; the more of life you live, the more experiences there will be in your memory to draw upon at times when you wouldn’t expect it, as long as you’re observant of what you’re going through and take the time to think about it. There have been a lot of good writers over the years who have said that the best writers and the ones who are most able to imagine what other lives are like are those who have lived their own lives as fully as possible. I’m not recommending making tours of mental hospitals and out-patient psychiatrists’ offices; what I’m saying is that this morning was an instance in which I could take something bad that happened to me when I was younger than I am now and use some of the knowledge that I gained from that experience to turn it into a useful joke that had more than one purpose.
Copyright L. Kochman July 22, 2011 @ 9:55 a.m. (From Word)/final edit and addition @ 10:06 a.m./really final edit @ 10:20 a.m.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright on Weebly L. Kochman July 22, 2011 @ 10:28 a.m./edit @ 10:31 a.m.