What to do About Ugliness

There is much ugliness in the world. There has always been, but due to our media we see it and hear it daily. I believe the ugliness is uglier now due to the verbal nastiness and lack of manners in general. It’s a shame really. Words can be beautiful. Some writers and thinkers can weave together a beautiful weave of words, while others can use those very words and turn them into a maelstrom of malicious, dreadful eddy.

To say this ugliness comes from one person or even one type of person or persons of a specific belief, would be a fallacy. Ugliness can be in each one of us. So where can we find truth in all the ugliness? Is it even possible?

I have always told my girls that truth is somewhere in the middle between the extremes. This theory came from being a teacher and a mom. Every time two children came up to me with a story on the playground with a feud it was easy to see in a short time that one of the children didn’t pick up a board and beat the other on the shoulders as the story related. And the other didn’t push the first to the ground on purpose! Anger, fear and frustration make both sides of the story grow and morph into only a retaining the barest of fact.

On a side note, kids go home and tell their parents their side of these morphed facts, unwise parents take the bait and get mad, ready for a fight with the teacher or other children. There is a saying many teachers love, “Don’t believe everything kids tell about school and we won’t believe everything they tell about you.” Now before I have a parent go off on me about something some teacher did, please remember I do believe you are your child’s advocate. But the best way to be your child’s advocate is to pay attention daily, talk daily, be involved in their life. When you know your child intimately this way it’s easier to spot a sensationalized story or when they truly need your intervention.

In my high school English class, I remember hearing about sensational writing. It was the easiest of all the writing assignments. Take a little bit of truth and blow it up and/or make it sound scandalous with a hint of something. Perhaps because I learned well how to write this way I also learned well how to recognize it. I would venture to say that there is little, if any, media out in our oversaturated world that isn’t sensationalized in some way. After all, this is what marketing is, is it not?

So, whenever you read, or hear a news story, please try to find the nugget of truth, sometimes the truth is so hidden you must seek out another few websites to find it. The more we seek for this truth and hold our media accountable for over sensationalizing what we hear/read, hopefully the more they will begin writing for truth. But as I said, many writers find it easier to sensationalize than to tell the truth.

If one is smart, one steps back from the name calling, ridiculing, hate mongering and tries to find the truth, tries to share love in the in the craziness of each situation.