It is just me or does everyone experience beauty of familiarity? You see, I have noticed that after I work with or know someone for a while they seem to become more attractive. Perhaps not attractive in a romantic sense, but definitely in a pleasant comfortable way. Same thing seems to happen with music. I've got songs on my iPod that must have come from Daniel's (my son) collection. I would have never listened to these songs on my own, but now I find myself singing along.
I don't know if it is just me but it is without doubt something that occurs in my life and not just with faces and music.
I was watching a movie the other day and it suddenly hit me that the lead character was cheating on their spouse and I wanted the adulterous couple to 'get together'. That made sense because they were in 'love' and that would give the movie a happy ending. EXCUSE ME!!! Somewhere in my life the idea of a man cheating on his wife had become so common that I no longer thought it was ugly.
When does something like that happen? I certainly wasn't raised that way. I absolutely don't believe that type of action is acceptable. Cheating on a spouse is violation of a promise made to your spouse, to yourself and to God. How can I possibly watch that type of behavior in a movie, on TV or perhaps in real life and not be shocked and perhaps offended.
How can I sit in a restaurant and hear those sitting at tables around me cursing? Using words in public that just a few short years ago were confined to private but now seem to becoming common. Where is MY shock and outrage?
I know where it is. I have allowed myself to become so familiar with these things that they are losing their 'ugly'. I have seen it so many times that my outrage is either exhausted or gone because I am living/working with these ugly things every day.
We are being pushed more and more to be accepting of behaviors that are ugly. Those who might support these things and have some control over such things continue to place them in front of us so much that we don't notice them anymore. It has been said (and perhaps proven) that a lie repeated often enough will be believed. The same rule seems to apply to the portrayal of aberrant, wrong or ugly behaviors as beautiful. Say they are beautiful long enough and that will be believed.
I think we are reaching the point in our society where we have been exposed to so much; so many times that nothing shocks us. Seriously, it takes Tiger cheating on his wife with a dozen (or more) women before there is outrage (do you really believe there would have been such uproar if there was only one?)! We have begun to accept these items as 'normal'.
This has got to stop! It is not right for me to promote and accept things that cross the very moral precepts upon which I base my life. I am making a promise to myself to not accept these things. I will no longer let myself be fooled in to supporting actions, behaviors, life styles either explicitly or implicitly just because I happen to like the book, song, movie, etc....
I do have a choice about how I view the world. I chose to view the world through a standard that was given to me by a very wise man many years ago. It goes starts like this, "It is always right to do right and always wrong to do wrong..."
Wrong is ugly. I don't care how talented or beautiful the person is.
Right is beautiful. I don't care how talented or beautiful the person is.
Make a decision to make your own decision about what is right. Don't ignore or miss the wrong just because it has been normalized by repetition in our society.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers.
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