flip. by Rex Manning
My family had a trampoline when I was a kid. It was a good distraction for a kid and I was great at front flips. I never did get the back flip though. I was just too scared. Well last summer I was hanging out with some friends and decided that I should get over it and just try. Funny thing about fear, eh? or was I just showing off!?!? I don't think the fears of a child always need to be attacked by a thrirty year old. Yeah, that's right. Thirty. ...well, things didn't turn out so well that fatefull day. I landed on my head and had to go to physio two weeks later when I could hardly move my back.
Although I'm sure there is a lesson in that, that's not really the kind of flip I mean to talk about. I mean flippant. (from the word flip) I got this from dictionary.com:
flip·pant adj.
Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness.
Is it just me or has flippancy been a plague to all of us. I'm sure it stems from holding all things suspect or being a sceptic or individualistic or something of that nature (which is not always bad considering that that likely comes from disappointment). What ever the source, have we become fippant. Here is my "proof". In light of our youth culture we hold high the idea of COOL. Now cool dosn't just mean Neato! or Awesome! or even popular. That is how we sometimes use the word, but cool is much more. It's the Fonz - AKA. Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzerelli (Happy Days). He was cool because he was always in every situation calm, COOL and collected. Nothing could rattle him. I can think of many times when being calm and collected is good but for nothing to shake us we often shut down our passion and caring so as to not let things get to us. So there is my conection. Cool is to 'not be rattled (shaken)' and to be popular and Neato! That's sad, don't you think? To link the two? Where is life love and passion when it is neato to be flippant. Does anyone remember the song by Ben Folds Five called "Battle of Who Could Care Less" from the album 'Whatever And Ever Amen"? It is a tongue in cheek look at fippancy. her's the first verse:
Do you not hear me anymore
I know it's cool to be so bored
I know it's not your thing to care
But it sucks me in
when you're aloof
It sucks me in, it sucks it works
I guess it's cool to be alone
Will you never rest
Fighting the battle of who could care less
Everyday you wake up late
Sometimes I wish I was that way
Well in effort not to go on and on, I'll stop now and hear what ya'll have to say. or don't respond, either way I don't care! (jokes!)
posted by parkside padre at 1:12 PM
4 Comments:
daytona... what sparked this awareness of flippancy?... scott
2:52 PM
i think, like you said, sometimes it's less painful (or less disappointing) to be flippant. especially when we lose sight of the big picture and become overwhelmed by the moment.
2:12 PM
I think so, janie. Plus, it (flippancy) is very rock and roll. And that is desirable to a lot of us (read - me)!
To the padre, I find myself to be like this far too often and I don't really like that about myself.
12:15 AM
i still have visions of you landing on your head. but, in all fairness, you were only 29 then. maybe you actually could do it in your 30's. (not that I'm advocating that you try).
having been a high school teacher, flippancy was the horror of my everyday. it seems that no one in our culture has the right to be passionate about anything - otherwise they're psycotic, fundamentalist, juvenile, or just plain wrong. i find that i fight this tendency when i'm around others, and wanting to be cool (yes, i want to be cool). I downplay the incredible gift that Christ is to me, I don't reveal my passion for my husband or my overwhelming pride in my daughter...and for what? can i ever get out of highschool?
1:50 PM
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