20190331.0430

I am aware that tomorrow is supposed to be a bit of a carnivalesque day, one that encourages and, in theory, rewards playing jokes on people, pranks of various sorts. I will note that I have no intention of participating; I'm past the point of thinking it funny to tell people my wife is pregnant when she is not, or that I am, or that setting things up to see people hurt or humiliated leads to things that ought to get laughter (except the cocky, in the latter case). I'm past the point of thinking a lot of things are funny that I used to think were, in fact; while I do still find myself laughing about a great many things, that many is not so great as it once was.
I find that I am reacting more in sympathy with people than with laughter at or about them. I am considering their pain and embarrassment more. It is a good thing, in itself; I ought to be more sympathetic to people than I hitherto have been, being a jerk, and being the jerk I have been has not helped me. I did formerly laugh at people for things I ought not to have done, not necessarily because they needed more inclusion (although I am certain some did--but there were many who put themselves outside on purpose, or who made themselves unwelcome), but because I ought to have been better. I have been on the receiving ends of laughter and of scorn, and I have often deserved it, but I have not always done so; I ought to have long been better about not inflicting on others what I would not suffer.
Perhaps it is an issue of my working at a substance abuse clinic, wherein I see quite a few people at their lowest points in life or not far above them, that moves me so. Perhaps it is being a father. Perhaps it is, in fact, the putative liberal indoctrination that pervades academe and especially the humanities fields in which I have worked and still work. But I am minded of Much Ado about Nothing, in which Benedick remarks that "A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age,"* and I am not so young a man as I have previously been; the spices of such discourses no longer sit so well with me as once they did, causing something that feels like heartburn but is not.
I shall therefore dine on less spicy stuff tomorrow than many will, but the flavor will not be bland because of it. I doubt it will be overly salty, though I cannot forego salt entirely. Perhaps it will be sweeter, not the saccharine corn-syrupy pap with which many distract children, but a cleaner nectar. Perhaps it will be more savory, rich and comforting in the belly instead of a prompt to flop-sweat. And if it is bitter, well, there is a reason I take my coffee black.

*Yes, I see the at-least-double entendre. I do have a PhD in English languages and literatures, after all.