Cracked Pot Meditations – Offend

Meditation for January 20^th

Offend

Living in such a diverse world makes it easy for some of us to be offended by people’s words. Sometimes the person doesn’t know any better with the words they use, and other people are being malicious, but unless they make that clear, it is hard to tell without knowing the person. Some confuse the shock of offensive words with humor. Some words bring up painful memories from the past, while others attack who you think you are. Sometimes the words pigeonhole us too neatly, and that hurts us, and we want to retaliate or educate.

If you are offended easily, grow up. The world was fine when no one had time to be offended because, unless you were royalty or a religious leader, you were eating mud and growing sheep shit. If you are offended by what someone calls you, then you have some doubts about yourself. Being defensive is a sign that something isn’t true. If you are offended by someone making light of a troublesome experience you had, let it go; someone else has gotten over it and is laughing at the same joke.

Being offended means we don’t have a sound foundation in our own beliefs, and an outside perspective shatters that. Usually, when we have an emotional response to something offensive, we are living a life of reacting instead of responding. Reacting means we are on edge, living in fear, just surviving, and that all our interactions become emotional reactions. Being offended is not coming from a rational place, but an emotional one.

I’m not saying there is nothing wrong with being offensive; there is. Punching down for a laugh or blaming marginalized groups for society’s woes is awful—a pure sign of insecurity and lack of intellect. So if you are being offended, you are being offended by an idiot, and you really want to waste your time crying over getting your feelings hurt by a dum-dum? You really gonna go to war on Facebook over some insecure dingus said some stupid shit?

You change nothing by fighting the whole wide world around you to take you seriously and treat you the way you want to be treated. If it were the right way to be, then we’d all be that kind of person. Being strange or different is just a cry for help because you weren’t good enough to be a normal person. If you think the world is going to change the way they talk and view the world based on your offended self, then you don’t know how the world works. Grow up and get a job.

Prayer

One True Lord,

allow me to be ok with who I am,

instead of who I want others to think I am.

Help me thicken up my skin,

instead of posting vague or specific posts on Facebook,

about a particular kind of person attacking your type of person.

The Only God that Really Exists,

Give me the strength to be what others will have me be,

instead of needing to be special with sex, gender, or race.

God of Everyone,

Let me have the strength in my soul to laugh off stupid jokes that maybe isolate a particular kind of person and make them look foolish or of a weaker type of person instead of needing to throw my tofu salad to the ground and write an angry letter stating that people can’t find anything funny except for Amy Schumer, Margaret Cho and sometimes Louis C.K. Still, I’ll conveniently forget the borderline racist and rape jokes that I’m mad at Tosh for making, if my understanding of the Tosh incident is correct. Still, Tosh is a younger and more frat-like white guy, while Louis C.K. is a chubby, smart, red-headed guy who can’t harm anyone – can he?

Amen.

Craft

Instead of feeling offended, bring back aggression. Make fun of that person back. Go for the throat, but keep smiling because that is how you won’t need to make an apology later. Everyone has a weak spot, and if you don’t see one readily available, question their weight because everyone is afraid of being the wrong weight.

Goal

Stop being offended. Offend others.