Oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood
When I was a kid I always thought this was a silly song - my logic went somewhere along the lines of, "well, if they don't understand you, then just explain it again and if they still don't get it, then they're not worth bothering with." But just recently I've come to see what the Nina Simone and Elvis Costello (the version I remember hearing in the car) were on about.
I have always laboured under the belief that actions count for much more than words. As a consequence I have always held contempt for pious people who extol their virtues and talk at great length about their noble beliefs. I have always wanted to shove these people into some dire personal circumstance and see how their high moral values stand up when they're running for their lives in some hellish natural disaster or terrorist attack. My (rather childish) reaction to this has usually been to be derisory about tragic events or environmental disasters, knowing (rather conceitedly) that if I was in a position to help with such events I'd be straight in there with no flannel or debate and at least if I didn't I could comfort myself with the knowledge that I'd never eulogised about how I would get stuck in there*. I could see how this could be misunderstood as an uncaring attitude by outsiders, but I always assumed people close to me would instinctively know my secret hidden agenda to be the unlikely saviour of humanity and take my aspersions with a pinch of salt.
So when I was accused of being heartless about some recent news event by someone I thought should have known better it was a real shock and actually really upset me. I was reduced to citing instances where that blatantly wasn't the case, and exclaiming things like "I thought actions counted for more than words!"
It happened again to lesser extent, when I organised for a few old chums from school to meet up after years of not all seeing each other. As far as I could tell we all had a pretty good time as we quickly overcame the fear of the spatial and temporal gulf and realised none of us had really changed. Though, maybe I was being over-sensitive, I was caught slightly off-guard by a comment as we preparing to go our separate ways: "So was it a success then?" What's that supposed to mean? So you're saying I organised this to gain some personal kudos, rather than just wanting to see a few of my old friends in the same place. Maybe I was guilty of wanting to recreate a bygone time of teenhood and in that case it was a failure - jobs, relationships and inebriants were rarely a feature of the good old days - but to suggest I'd organised it to be like one of those self-satisfied idiots you see on American high school reunion movies was not what I intended at all.
So I've come to see what old Bennie Benjamin was on about when he wrote it - when someone misunderstands what you believe to be part of your core self, it's not that easy just to quietly explain it to them. Or perhaps I'm just confirming my Yesmam status and being an over-sensitive fool.
* although now I have, so I'm kinda making a rod for own back by writing this - bugger.
I have always laboured under the belief that actions count for much more than words. As a consequence I have always held contempt for pious people who extol their virtues and talk at great length about their noble beliefs. I have always wanted to shove these people into some dire personal circumstance and see how their high moral values stand up when they're running for their lives in some hellish natural disaster or terrorist attack. My (rather childish) reaction to this has usually been to be derisory about tragic events or environmental disasters, knowing (rather conceitedly) that if I was in a position to help with such events I'd be straight in there with no flannel or debate and at least if I didn't I could comfort myself with the knowledge that I'd never eulogised about how I would get stuck in there*. I could see how this could be misunderstood as an uncaring attitude by outsiders, but I always assumed people close to me would instinctively know my secret hidden agenda to be the unlikely saviour of humanity and take my aspersions with a pinch of salt.
So when I was accused of being heartless about some recent news event by someone I thought should have known better it was a real shock and actually really upset me. I was reduced to citing instances where that blatantly wasn't the case, and exclaiming things like "I thought actions counted for more than words!"
It happened again to lesser extent, when I organised for a few old chums from school to meet up after years of not all seeing each other. As far as I could tell we all had a pretty good time as we quickly overcame the fear of the spatial and temporal gulf and realised none of us had really changed. Though, maybe I was being over-sensitive, I was caught slightly off-guard by a comment as we preparing to go our separate ways: "So was it a success then?" What's that supposed to mean? So you're saying I organised this to gain some personal kudos, rather than just wanting to see a few of my old friends in the same place. Maybe I was guilty of wanting to recreate a bygone time of teenhood and in that case it was a failure - jobs, relationships and inebriants were rarely a feature of the good old days - but to suggest I'd organised it to be like one of those self-satisfied idiots you see on American high school reunion movies was not what I intended at all.
So I've come to see what old Bennie Benjamin was on about when he wrote it - when someone misunderstands what you believe to be part of your core self, it's not that easy just to quietly explain it to them. Or perhaps I'm just confirming my Yesmam status and being an over-sensitive fool.
* although now I have, so I'm kinda making a rod for own back by writing this - bugger.
posted by Yesman at 5:45 pm
1 Comments:
He loves it.
Update your blog!!
NM
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