The Stratagem’s Archive

Category: Writing

  • Trite and Vexing Vocabulary

    What is a word you feel that too many people use?

    Many words have been used to the point that hearing it provokes a visceral reaction. I know that I tend to feel myself: tense up, I feel a noticeable thumping hitting the front of my skull, I’m mentally rolling my eyes, and letting out a heavy huff. It’s the only way that I’m able to release the bubbling irritation boiling within me, before returning to emotional numbness, especially when I’m at work.

    The few words or phrases that tends to get a rise from me, in the sense that I want to drop kick whoever is talking, are:

    • Can you go do X? (Either I’m already or about to do it, or the person asking bypasses more than half a dozen people standing around just to ask me? That’s infuriating.)
    • Have you seen so-so? (I’m not getting paid to babysit young adults, no. Go bother the people who’s supposed to be training the new hires.)
    • [S/he’s] not doing anything! (Have you EVER noticed you’re doing the same thing? It’s irritating, nothings going to change, just do your job and leave. Still working on taking my own advice too.)
    • I want to go home already. (Me too, but we have to finish sorting the freight, then we can leave. But that’s wishful thinking on good days.)

    These are other words and phrases I can’t think of at the top of my head, though it does make me want to drop kick people, but it also depends on how it’s being said.

    Think of it like this; we all have our preferences and it will differ from the people we know and don’t know, right? However, have you ever heard one person speaking and their voice is pleasant, soothing, and makes you want to listen more intently? Okay, keep that in mind.

    Now, imagine the most irritating, nail scratching, metal grinding metal, and obnoxious sounding person you can muster and saying the words you absolutely despise and are repeating it over and over again until you start to think your ears are bleeding. That makes those overly used words even more difficult to tolerate.

    There’s nothing that can be done about it, sadly, it’s another lingo, and the best I can do for myself is to tune everything out and do what I have to do. No matter how angry, bitter, and resentful I feel, no matter how much I want to drop kick people, I just have to exist and let go.

    For more posts like this, I have a few recommendation below, and I’ll see you over in the next ones!

    Where Peace Radiates From Most?

    My Life Through An Alternate Lens

    The Little Things Make Me Happy

  • Where Peace Radiates From Most?

    What brings you peace?

    The majority of the prompts I’ve answered since starting my blog had asked similarly, but worded differently, questions, and I had mentioned doing some physical activity. Walking had been my most prominent answer, although it’s true, this brings me contentment.

    Peace on the other hand is different; I’ve lived near the ocean my whole life and, as a kid, I’d used to have to be dragged out of the water to leave. Some people have a strong connection to the ocean: they care for it and in return the ocean would care for us. Not in the same sense as we would care for our family and friends.

    One of my grandma’s younger brother had take shrapnel from a grenade blast when he served in the Vietnam war as a young man. He was on and off medication because the doctors couldn’t remove all of the metal in his body because it would have led to him bleeding to death, so they left the metal in his body. It was until their dad took him fishing one day that, when he was out on the water casting a line, his pain felt far away.

    Whenever I used to go swimming, I would never stray too far from the shore, I would feel at peace in the water. The saltiness of the water would let me float on my back, fill my ears and everything would feel and sound muffled, sand would end of getting into places you’d never want them to be, and I would stare at the sky and let the current take me adrift.

    Being in the ocean, among the sandy shores, that hasn’t been fully contaminated by myriad of sun screen or boat waste, has been healing for both body and spirit.

    Even though I haven’t visited a beach in years, being in a hot bath provides a similar feeling the ocean used to bring to me. That feeling, though fleeting and stretched into infinity, was being able to let go and drift.

    No need to go anywhere, no obligations to fulfill, no noise about being a failure or a success or a nobody or a somebody, just being. Just breathing. Just existing.

    The sea has its rules and ignoring it would lead to disaster:

    • Never face your back to the water, else a rogue wave comes and drags you in.
    • Never fight against the current, go with it until the current calms and you can swim.
    • Take care of the sea, make it better than you found it, and it will care for you.

    Letting go and drifting in the water had brought me peace. It made me wonder if this is what moving on would feel like when my time comes, but I won’t know until I get there. The next time you’re in a large body of water, or even a simple bathtub, drift on your back, close your eyes and let the water envelope you.