Took Shark to Woodcraft Folk. She adores this group. She stands in shining-eyed equality with all the other fervent woodies, vowing friendship and harmony for ever and ever, then skips away, hand-in-hand, to make fruit kebabs and plan world peace through cooperative camping trips where there are sharing games and wholesome camp-fire songs.
I tell Shark I am delighted. Yes, I am. I totally support her, and will drive her to the woodies and back home again even though it takes forever and there is always a traffic jam through Dunstable.
I mean it too, and I totally deny there is a tiny voice in my head wishing I were really driving her to an underground anarchist cell or an Animal Liberation Front meet-up group.
That is the problem with the Woodcraft Folk. They bring out my schizophrenic attitude to niceness.
Yes, it is a very great aspiration. To want the land washed over with courtesy and decency and dignity and love for small furry animals.
But what if we actually got it?
Life would be intolerable. We would all be nice to each other. We would be helpful. All the time.
After a couple of hours, I would have a breakdown. I need a few layers of shame, grime, dirt, indignity and callous indifference to make life worth living. So although I am totally happy to support Shark's enthusiasm with the wholesome woodies, I know I have my limits. The pressure to be good might turn me bad. Then I will be forced to chuck a brick through the Co-op window just to make a point that humans can be miserable, ungenerous, cruel, mean, ugly and unkind. And no way are they getting me to sing round a camp-fire.
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1 comment:
Make sure you do make your feelings clear to Shark. You don't want her to grow up without a healthy dose of scepticism. By the way, I am like you and will help you heave the brick through the window.
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