Notes In The Margin

 Sticks & Stones

Skin & Bones

I want to investigate the relationship between Sticks & Stones and Skin & Bones.  It’s paradoxical. Hard objects can take a terrible toll on soft matter.  We all know the childhood retort, a weak and devil-may-care reply that we knew to be a lie. Yet for all that, we are evolved to be physically resilient.  For a moment, consider words as hard objects and consider the soul, or spirit, as soft tissue. When they collide they can hurt, you know that.  But most people have little understanding of the impact of words on the softer tissue of the soul.  You can pick up words like pebbles on a beach and hurl them at the object of your wrath.   But remember the Corbomite Maneuver. Words like deeds can have consequences, more hurtful, more lasting.

Physical wounds usually heal. Emotional wounds can last a lifetime, festering deeper and deeper. At some point, if you’re lucky you might be able to excise the rot.   

Damage to the soul bleeds more than blood. It robs one of the ability to savour things, indeed, to seek out new things, taste them, touch them.  As a wise friend never tired of saying “Life is good.”  Don’t waste it in the past. So never fear to spit into the wind or test that shallow ice. 

What’s the worst that can happen?  

Dare.  Sample.  Taste.  Grab everything in big chunks.

We come this way but once.

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