Yeah. If you pay attention you also realize how privileged we have been and how so many concerns of the past are no longer concerns that we have turned things that should be trivial into very horrific things.
I mean I walked up to my grandkids a week or so ago and said "Punch, pow, kick, choke, slam" they looked at me. "Did I hurt you?" They said no. "They keep saying words are violence. They've completely forgot the sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me saying."
Grandpa has to try to drop some wisdom, keep them on their toes, and make them think from time to time.
You see your friend and a few strangers over there, walk up, can kind of hear what they're saying, they don't see you coming, you lightheartedly say, "You people are so full of shit."
They look, they see the dumb look on your face, relax, greet you, invite you to join. Next thing you know you're sitting there bullshitting with them.
I said, "You people are so full of shit," with that exact same social situation in mind, but on Facebook. Within one minute I received a notification thinking someone responded. Nope. I got served. Apparently what I said was hateful and I was demonstrating some form of superiority over others, according to this message, that also stated my one liner had been removed, and I was no longer welcome in the establishment. And it wasn't like any other message I had ever seen on that platform. Big, bright, bold; orange! As if they slapped a warning label on me.
So either I got reported or some fancy code stepped in to make decisions but regardless, all I could think about was how much developing this misunderstanding must have cost them...
Just giving me the ability to say, "Relax, I'm just kidding," would have been far more cost-effective.
It also prevented me from making new friends. You see, in this social situation, you can approach a group like that and sometimes one will snap back with an, "Excuse me!"
You tell them you're kidding, they observe the others and their reaction, quickly settle down feeling relieved, and the result is often two strangers feeling comfortable with one another almost instantly. Breaking the ice.
Now imagine that being interpreted as violence and that social media swarm I mentioned comes into play had the message not been removed. Convert that into a bar setting and picture all those people surrounding a gentleman attempting to shame him out of the establishment over a misunderstanding. Yelling and screaming. Feeling invincible and on top of the world. Dumping drinks on you. Spitting on you. No choice but to shove your way out of there and suddenly forty people are jumping you, and calling it self defense; because a word was the first punch?
Yep. That is it exactly. It was the lesson I was trying to convey to my grandkids. There is a big difference between words and violence. If I was not an adult and they were not my grandkids I could ask them if they need me to demonstrate the difference. It'd be their choice. I'd not say it in an antagonizing way. When I was younger I might have. :)
I'm myself around my kids. They'll be fine. And that's all I need to say about that.
Haha... yeah. My kids are all in good shape too. The grandkids too. Yet I like to keep them on their toes and make them think differently from time to time.
The only normal thing about grandpa is that things will not be normal.