If everyone could fly, no one would be afraid of heights.
(Young boy to his dad. Overheard on the number 90 bus one early Bristol morning.)
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Think about this one. I can’t make my mind up whether this is sweetly naive or the deepest, most insightful comment I’ve ever overheard. What do you think?
Hmmmm…..
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Yeah, I guess heights are about falling. There you go: add the success/failure fear thingy and that covers it. Kids speak with real clarity sometimes, most times.
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Yeah, sometimes. Then sometimes my kid calls everyone Jeff and beatboxes for ten minutes when you’re trying to have a conversation with him! 🙂
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Well, I’m going to be cold and cynical and just say it’s neither sweetly naive nor insightful. It’s just not logical. That’s like saying if everyone could speak, no one would be afraid of public speaking.
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Haha! Very, very good point there Walt. I for one know that not to be the case. The kid on the bus was one of my son’s old school mates – I’ll go search him out and tell him what a fool he is. Best he learn early 🙂
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I don’t know, isn’t fear of heights related to falling off? So it doesn’t strike me as totally off the mark. Mind you, there had to be at least one who’s still be afraid of heights – so basically now I want to write a story about a character who can fly and is afraid of heights…
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Yes, nice story idea. How about a mermaid who’s afraid of the water? A Phoenix who’s terrified of fire? The options are almost endless 🙂
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A vampire who faints at the sight of blood…
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Yes! A werewolf with luna-phobia. A bogey man who’s scared of the dark. An honest banker / politician / estate agent …
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Honest banker/politician/estate agent? Now that surely is taking it too far 😉
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My apologies. You’re absolutely right 🙂
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There are always these off-the-cuff phrases that sound profound at the time but melt away in the fierce glare of analysis. So many online memes shared on Facebook are in this category, aren’t they?
My favourite so-whats (which is how I think of them) is the phrase a mother in our railway carriage used in reply to her young son’s query: “Trains don’t stop at every station.”
Another not-so-profound-under-scrutiny statement was the one we witnessed at a late night youthful ouija board session which spelt out “YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.” At least we weren’t told exactly when, but after the initial shock we realised we all sort of knew that anyway …
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Haha! Love the ouija board story – very funny when you think about it.I know what you mean about fb – you see an awful lot of quotes that sound very clever on the surface, pseudo philosophical. The kind of thing that makes me roll my eyes. Thanks for reading, Chris 🙂
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I think definitely the latter. 🙂
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It’s certainly a way to look at the world. Thanks for reading 🙂
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