Something Ridiculous

There are many ridiculous things in the world.  I will often exclaim:  “That’s so ridiculous!” when  I witness certain events on the news – the latest one about the uncontrollable biter playing football for Uruguay -  Luis Suarez or as some like to call him:  Jaws.  I used that sentence the other night while we were watching a comedy show done by Trevor Noah who talked about how “being gay” is illegal in countries like Zambia and how a person will get arrested if they are found to be gay.  He thought this was really ridiculous and tried to see the funny side of it.  What would a police force look like who investigated people who are gay and how would they identify them?  Do they ask them:  “What is the purpose of that flamboyant scarf you are wearing?”  The concept is so ridiculous that it is actually funny. 

There are also many things that I observe in the world around me and in everyday life that I think is ridiculous. 

For instance people who only drink tea and never experience that satisfying feeling of your first sip of coffee in the morning.  That feeling of pure bliss and suddenly knowing that no matter how down you are, everything will be okay in the end.

Another ridiculous thing is when people go through all the trouble of going out to see a movie and paying all that money for tickets and then they talk throughout the movie.  According to my husband (who is a bit of a movie fanatic) there is a special place in hell for such individuals. 

I do not understand people who never listen to any music.  How can you discover and become more aware of the melody of your life, if you don’t listen to any songs?  My life would be very bleak if I didn’t constantly fill it with all kinds of weird and wonderful music.

Many people (and definitely also me) sometimes forget to dance in and enjoy the rain.  Isn’t it a bit ridiculous that we decide that sunshine means happiness, but rain and cold and clouds means sadness.  Shouldn’t we appreciate all the seasons and all the aspects of nature?  We as humans are so fickle and ridiculous in our demands and perceptions of life.

I find it extremely ridiculous that a lot of people never read and that parents don’t introduce their children to the imaginative world of books.  It’s sad that many people only read from their kindle and Ipad and never go into a bookshop and smell that new-book smell.  They will never turn the pages of a book that you just cannot put down.  All my childhood memories are filled with images and characters from all the books I’ve read.  I was completely lost in the world of books and it was really hard to get back to reality and find a balance between the beauty of books and the sometimes-harsh-but-if-you-look-really-close-just-as-beautiful-world we live in. 

But I guess one of the most ridiculous things is that when I had to write this piece, I struggled for a while to get my imagination flowing, so I turned to the only resource I could think of in case of a writer’s block in that moment; my good friend Google. 

I must admit, I did find some ridiculous things.  Did you know that you could fit 360 teardrops in a tablespoon?  Which is ridiculous if you think that somebody had the time and the motivation to cry and then catch their tears with a tablespoon (which couldn’t have been an easy job) and then counted each drop until the spoon was full.  What’s even more ridiculous is that this story makes me want to try it and maybe even write a song about it… “Just a spoon full of teardrops make your worries go by… in the most delightful way”.

I also learned while I was on Google about a high-energy juggling and acrobatic act performed by two slapstick stuntmen, called “Something Ridiculous.”  They seem to have made “being ridiculous” a way of life. 

But nothing I found stirred my wild imagination in action.  It actually just made me sad to think that we live in a world where little is left to the imagination.  We never have to wonder about things anymore or ask inquisitive questions to our parents, teachers or friends.  We never go look for the answers in libraries filled with knowledgeable books and encyclopaedias.  Most of life’s answers are but a click away with the technology of today.  You can even Google something so ridiculous as:  “When someone waves to me, should I wave back?”  The internet is truly making us smarter and dumber at the same time.  

People are watching television (and I am including myself in this statement) rather than curling up on the couch with a good book.  And it’s not that television is a bad thing, it’s just that if all the images are given to you (and sometimes in very violent and explicit ways), you don’t need to use your imagination.  And I think growing up and even being a grown-up without imagination is something very ridiculous.

So maybe I should have rather written about this land far, far away called Flutterby, where a little girl lived who was called Inara.  She was born with fairy wings, but a wise old lady told her that she shouldn’t tell many people about her wings as people can sometimes be ridiculous when they see beauty different to their own.  So she grew up knowing she was a fairy and she died without anyone knowing about her wings. 

Perhaps if they sometimes tore themselves away from the television, their emails, facebook status updates and connecting without every really being connected they would have caught a glimpse of the glitter and magic they were surrounded by.