APRIL 4, 2020 – As is the case with everyone these days, I’m learning how to deal with stress created by The Crisis. Yesterday, I discovered some “deep breathing” exercises.
By the time it had occurred to me to search “deep breathing” online, the sun had slipped under the horizon, and the outside temperature had dropped below freezing. I donned a ski cap and winter jacket, stepped out on our back porch, and dutifully followed the simple, web-sourced directions. After a few minutes of mindful inhaling, exhaling, and series of “five-counts,” I felt a large measure of anxiety dissipate. All seemed right with the world—as far as right can be in times like these.
But then I blew it . . . so to speak, or rather, as you’ll see . . . to write.
Restored and rejuvenated—or so I thought—I sat down to compose a long-overdue letter via email to our good friends João and Joana, who live in Lisbon. (Actually, while riding out The Crisis, they’re living in a sun-drenched, beautiful spot near Lagos in Algarve (pronounced, “Al Gharb” from the day of the Muslims, who assigned the Arabic name, “The West” to the southwest edge of Iberia)). Joana is a journalist and João is a filmmaker.
After inquiring about their health and circumstances, I described our own. I then turned to a favorite topic among us—politics.
By way of background, the reader should know that in conversation, profanity is not a central part of my speech pattern. I consider it “nuclear.” By the same token, I’m not averse to tactical use of the F-bomb to eradicate mental or physical pain* or simply to “stomp on the gas”; strategic use of the “sh” word to describe adequately a figurative pile of major manure; or . . . fully justifiable use of “A-hole” to describe an individual of ill-repute and especially bad behavior.
Long ago, however, I declared all of my writing, however informal the context, to be “a nuclear free zone.” No F-bombs, no “sh” words, no “A-holes”—“hell” and “damn” being strictly conventional weapons.
But in my letter to João and Joana, I touched upon our stupid, mindless, heartless, heedless, soulless, myopic, ignorant, buffoonish, incurious, disdainful, despicable, disrespectful, unimaginative, narcissistic, sociopathic president.
However, to economize I did the undoable. I consolidated all those adjectives into a nuclear bomb. I typed out the word . . . A _ _ HOLE. And the worst of it was this: I let it stand and hit “send.”
Now back to deep breathing.
*Occasionally, strategic F-bombs can have a salutary. I once had a highly aggressive, obstreperous, business client whose mother tongue was “English-in-Expletives.” He always wanted me to advance the most aggressive position possible. In the name of “zealous advocacy,” a term of art within the formal ethical rules governing my profession, I often “advocated” for him in ways I considered extreme. Where I drew the line was when a position would lead to legal trouble for the client (who, doubtless, would later turn on me) or a move that was legally unethical. On one such, the badgering client wouldn’t back down. Out of options, I dropped a resounding F-bomb. He went totally silent for an unprecedented “five count” and sheepishly surrendered. It was the first time I’d used that weapon on him, and accordingly, it worked.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
