My World, Your World

Readers are telling me off. Reprimands have been coming in by ‘Personal Message’ and by e-mail.

I shall try to address some of the points.

Firstly:

My ‘Blogs’ are as long as they need to be. They are all, pretty much, the same length.

I’m sorry if you think that they are too lengthy and that they consume too much of your time.

I do understand that the television companies have rules about how many laughs per minute there should be in a half hour show and that shows should not be too long because we, as modern people, have a limited attention span... (breathes in!!) but there are certain lengths required to ‘make a point’.

I can make the ‘Blogs’ shorter, no doubt, but then I should not get sufficient information into each one. This is why some of the ‘Blogs’ are split up into two, or more, chapters in order to make them all similar lengths.

To give you an example, try writing a novel and a short story. You will find that writing both are difficult for different reasons; a short story gives you no time to develop a character or a story line, it has to be sharp and concise—telling the reader everything that they need to know to accomplish the reason for that story.

Novels are hard to write because you have to keep the end in sight for much longer and weave a more complex story line. Characters can be developed, changed, to suit their growth and the story.

I write a lot of stories that are ‘novella’ and ‘novelette’ length so that I can combine the two ideas without boring the reader.

Secondly:

Two of my very recent ‘Blogs’ have upset people because of my use of, quote, “insulting terminology” in that I referred to certain Nationalities by their nicknames—most of which have unpleasant or insulting connotations.

Sorry about that. There was no animosity involved—I even have friends who are Pakis and Chinks. They can call me what they like, I shall join in the laughter whether I am a Gwei Loh or a Mat Salleh! Perhaps you are a German and refer to me as an ‘Inseln Äpfen’ (Island Ape) or ‘Kanal Schwimmern’ (Channel Swimmer); or an African who says I am a ‘White Monkey’. It’s fine. Someone who has no nickname is in trouble because they have no friends.

Third:

Killing insects is not ‘fine’.

Yes, I understand that we kill thousands of ants by treading on them accidentally over a lifetime but that does not console me.

Yes, I understand that many of these creatures are ephemerals, their lives are vanishingly, to us, short but they are still valuable to that creature.

It may be that their perception of time is different to ours. Perhaps they see their time alive in the same way as we see our ‘three score years and ten’.

How can I tell if I have killed a baby bug and snuffed out sixty of its seventy years of bug years.

We often speak of ‘dog years’ and ‘cat years’ why should insects not be the same.

The thing that worries me about this is the standards that we have set and have become accustomed to living by.

Rats are vermin because we have said that they are vermin. A rat is not vermin to another rat.

It is our classification of creatures that determines whether they should live or die.

It is our disrespect of their lives that has created the need for special homes for cats and dogs and the associated need to euthanize them.

I do understand your points about my ‘Blog’ but I also understand my need to write for me, for my opinion.

I respect your right to put comments underneath stating your opinion. We are different, we have different perspectives and different tastes.

Fourthly:

(Sorry to take so long over this!) Of course I shall not eat my shampoo! The scent in my shower gel and shampoos is for cosmetic purposes only, not to make it appetising. It is the idea of it that I was objecting to,

Similarly, the concept of ‘Dogs**t’ scented aftershave was not really a serious one, I was just making a point, really. Perhaps it was badly phrased or stated—or was it the word ‘dogs**t’ that you object to my using?

Fifthly:

Your views on marijuana are your own. These are mine. Right or wrong, this is how I feel about it.

Sixthly:

I don’t care if you are... whatever it is that you are, as long as you are happy with it.

Yes, I understand that you feel that other people’s beliefs are affecting you but mine are not. How other people with similar beliefs to mine affect you is a problem between you and them—you must deal with it, it is not my concern.

I have friends of all belief systems including ‘non-belief’ systems of various sorts. Long may that continue.

Seventhly:

The World is a rich and varied environment.

We all live in it—with one another.

As I often tell my students, they will find that, from time to time, they will work with someone they don’t like. That person is still a colleague.

Suck it in and get on with it. You are co-dependent you and them.

The World is the same.

We live with people of different races, shades (we are all the same colour!), beliefs and sizes. We should enjoy the variety and stop killing one another for those differences.

I understand that you feel I should take a more ‘patriotic’ view of my own people but I don’t.

This is the World I live in. This is how I see that World.

It is beautiful.