Setting Fire to a Baby

This is the most recent fire I built. Baby not included.

Language is a gift.

I would set fire to a baby.

Most of us don't understand exactly what this would be to our senses. But some of us do. Those of us wrecked by terrors of war. Those of us repeatedly shaken in half by the violent imagery of some ghastly accident. The witnesses of these colossal horrors ache to scratch these memories from their tarnished brains. The rest of us, however, can barely know the notion of a baby on fire, let alone know the full reality. We don't know the smell of burning flesh. We can't comprehend eyeballs popping and melting from the heat. We would avert our faces from supple, young skin turning to black char. Muscles would burn from bone. Fat would spit and sizzle after it pooled in the back of a tiny skull. And if the fire was hot enough, the bones would crack and wither to dust. And to imagine such things makes most of us uncomfortable . . . to say the least. The simple sentence "I would set fire to a baby" immediately sickens us.

And I know what I am saying when I write this sentence and I mean it with all my heart. With great, unwavering conviction, I agree with setting fire to a baby, but this isn't entirely understandable unless I explain, unless I call attention to things that make sense.

. . . but I won't explain just yet.

For the time being, consider how blanket statements without clarification are considerably flawed. But, more importantly, I dare you to sit with what it means to completely burn an infant to a crisp . . . and then move on to consider my next statement:

So pretty. So deadly. Always the case it seems.

I made my mother a beautiful salad accented with flower petals.

This statement is, probably, relatively innocuous to most folks. Many different kinds of flowers can make a salad beautiful. With a leap of faith I've eaten rose petals before and while they are somewhat bitter, they can dress up a salad something fierce. On the other hand, what if this salad was prepared with foxglove petals? Anyone with a basic knowledge of foxglove likely knows how it can be extremely poisonous.

Foxglove, if ingested, can cause rashes, disorientation, hallucinations, fainting, blurred vision, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. And these symptoms are more sedate compared to the ones that are life-threatening. Foxglove can also change your heartbeat. It can slow it down. It can speed it up. It can make your heart muscles contract erratically. To be fair, however, I should mention that extracts from foxglove in the proper amount can be used to manage certain heart conditions. But if taken in the wrong dosage, like eaten from a salad bowl, it can give you a heart attack.

Foxglove can kill you.

So, let me be clear; I do not want to kill my mother with a foxglove salad. That would be reprehensible and twisted! Unfortunately, however, something like this has happened. Upon investigating foxglove poisoning, I found several instances where people have intentionally poisoned their partners. Can you imagine? "Here you go, hun, I made this delightful salad to go with your spaghetti. You'll love it!"

Half dead. Foxglove killer. 

My original statement about making my mother a salad accented by flowers and my subsequent explanation shows how language can easily be misconstrued if no clarifications follow. For those of you who didn't know foxglove was deadly, you might think a concoction of a salad with flower petals for my sweet mother was considerate and endearing. The statement, without the mention of foxglove, wreaks no havoc until our brains put a grave modifier on it.

In simpler terms, this is called jumping to conclusions. People do this all the time, forgetting to ask for clarifications. Why do some of us commit this mistake more than others? What mechanisms or manias give rise to filling in the blanks with unfounded conjecture and knee-jerk emotional responses? More importantly, can critical thinking be taught in a way to give greater rise to asking for clarifications first? I ask because I find myself, for better or for worse, driven to a quiet fury when folks jump to conclusions. I imagine their torture because of it. And, to paint a whole picture, I should also admit that I've had moments when the fury wasn't so quiet. These times are rare, but I have punched walls and smashed inanimate objects after witnessing such perseverations, especially after I've exhibited a colossal amount of patience and provided multitudes of calm, thoughtful clarifications.

So, a question remains:  Why does jumping to conclusions trump the gift of language, our ability to ask for clarifications?

Now, back to burning babies.

Again, I would incinerate a baby . . . but ONLY under the circumstances of creating a funeral pyre to respectfully let go of a loved one or maybe to burn away the presence of a highly-contagious disease. My graphic description of a burning baby above would be true regardless of the intent behind such an act, though, the telling "shamefully" steers the reader to revulsion. I could rewrite my beginning comments to embrace a more sublime atmosphere. I could avoid the description of a baby's eyes popping and melting and replace it with an account of the delicate and pleasing aroma of fresh lavender burning in the fire around the baby. These disparate accounts create different feelings for sure.

Language has great power. This should be self-evident.

What we jump to say and what we choose to say are very different things. Many folks don't think before they speak. As I said above, this mis-step, under certain circumstances, makes my guts hurt with controlled rage and I imagine scenarios where I'm drilling hundreds of sheet-rock screws into the bodies of thoughtless people. Separate from that frothing-at-the-mouth moment, I will note that what we say often gives others a pretty accurate account of who we are as people; it shows our mental fortitude . . . or lack thereof. What we say explains our upbringing. It shows our level of education. It discloses our morals. It can spell out our intent. It colors our character.

And yet, this is only one side of things. When someone says some blanket statement, regardless of what it entails, it doesn't end there. Oftentimes, it begs a question of clarification. In my observations, most folks just leave such unfounded conjecture without confrontation, saying "Oh, that person is crazy" or "That person is ignorant" or "That person isn't worth confronting" and they walk away having done nothing.

What do we make of ourselves if we don't confront people who speak without thinking?

Including myself at some measure, I think we are weak. I think we need to show more bravery when confronting racism, sexism, homophobia, violence, dishonesty and so on. And I'm not just talking about the blatant versions of these social malignancies. Those are obvious and easy to confront. I am, however, talking about the more subtle, institutionalized versions. It's far too easy to blow off, say, inappropriate touching when I think such an act should be "whacked in the teeth with a fucking wrench." Or, in another instance, it has become rote for many of us to look the other way when someone tells a white lie, but I sometimes am compelled to confront such a "mild" dishonesty with fierce fact finding and confrontation.

We also have a tendency to be lazy. It takes more work for us to vie for clarification, than it does to simply make shit up, fill in the blank, and believe whatever we want. For the sake of cognitive continuity our brains do this all the time as a normal process, but is being lazy the only reason for letting this mechanism go wild? If so, how did being lazy superseded our prominent faculty to ask a few respectful questions to understand another person's comments?

Steering back to my main concern, I simply claim loose-lipped, slacker-brained statements create havoc, but they only carry as much dynamism as we allow. I attest, we must confront thoughtless statements with grace and courage so as to point the offender in the right direction instead of allowing them too much room to justify their poor behavior. We cannot and should not rest on the notion that someone else will confront these mistakes, that the offender is somehow insufferable and should be ignored.

But allow me to bring this diatribe down a few notches. My original examples of language going wrong (burning a baby and fixing a foxglove salad) are extreme indeed. Without fail, gross and negligent examples of language should be challenged, but a similar treatment should also be diligently administered in the presence of comments seemingly innocuous in nature.

A salad for your thoughts?

And . . . all it takes is one simple inquiry:  What do you mean by that?

Like many of you, I've had way too many experiences in my life where folks easily jump to conclusions. They make up meanings of what others say and pass judgment long before the original speaker has a chance to explain their verbiage.

Anyway, I could bitch and moan about lazy language until you'll be inspired to mail me a cardboard box of vomit comprised of hot dogs and grape juice, but I won't. Instead, I'll just repeat something more important and something slightly more to the point and palatable.

Language is a gift.

Treat it as such and I won't be compelled to incinerate your baby while I serve you a salad made of foxglove petals.