Hergest Ridge

Many folks are quick to admire with vigour and detail at par with the particularity of a nuclear reactor blueprint. Personally, I find such admiration a tad bit, shall we say, radioactive? Yes, I think radioactive is a good description for it all makes me a bit morbific.

Having moved away from eastern Europe and the relative vicinity of Chernobyl, I am avoiding the nuclear kind of radioactivity fairly well, thank you. It’s this other kind of radioactivity that is consistently and constantly challenging my well being.

Most of my symptoms have root in the absolutism and assumptions which often accompany deep admiration. In the presence of admiration, absolutism and assumptions are often present and inseparable. They become quite evident when the claim “she always takes care of the needy” is made - the assumption being that even when the person is seen by none, their behaviour remains unaltered and noble, while the “always” absolute clenches the prize for “let’s run our nails down the blackboard.”

What I am trying to say is that maybe if we cease putting others on high pedestals, we’d better understand the importance of ordinary folks doing good things. If we stopped believing in supermen (and women!), we’d sooner roll up our sleeves and do the hard work ourselves without waiting for heroes to come around.

And with a little less admiration, we can have better relationships with more realistic expectations. Fewer people believing the best on imaginary or inflated grounds means less damage when someone does a dance with something pointy and dangerous. Surely something this chancy will cause less damage when we’re all standing on solid ground.