Heather Wilhelm gives good advice.
In her current "Happy Warrior" column, she doled out this gem:
How about bringing back a long-neglected string of words: "You know, when it comes to that particular topic, I'm not sure!" Our society seems to have sprouted a bumper crop of people who are increasingly willing to spout off passionate and fervent opinions on every topic that might cross their path on any given day, regardless of whether they know anything about it at all. This may sound bizarre, but it's true: You don't need to have an opinion on everything. It's exhausting.
Have truer words been written? "You don't need to have an opinion on everything." Facebook should develop an algorithm that inserts that sentence into every post. Of course, the very raison d'être of Facebook is to turn dross into fool's gold.
I find it interesting that the same people who were recently constitutional law experts morphed into virologists with the onset of the most recent plague and then into hydraulic engineers when our area was flooded last year. Facebook must be passing out honorary degrees somewhere in the depths of its software.
I do not always follow Wilhelm's advice. The underlying premise of Mexpatriate is that I am a stranger in a new land where the culture is completely new to me. It is a gold mine of writing material -- as long as I do not fall into the mire of turning every experience into an opportunity to complain about things I may not properly understand.
When I first moved here, my northern judgmentalism must have been packed at the top of the plastic bin containing my electronics because it escaped from Pandora's Box early on. Petty annoyances were -- well, annoying.
It took me about a year or two to get settled into the rhythms of life in these little fishing villages by the sea. Crowing roosters. Church bells. Bread sales cars with soundtracks loud enough to dislodge molar fillings. All morphed into part of the quotidian life I have chosen to live here.
Of course, the sounds did not morph. My attitude morphed. I simply did not need to have an opinion on them. They existed, and so did I.
When I sat down this morning to write, I had a distinct target in mind -- The Harry and Meghan Road Show. Barbara Castle and I never did share many political views, though we were soulmates on some social issues. She pithily summed up a similar royal dustup in the 1970s: "I find a plea of poverty from a jumped-up freeloader like him not just inappropriate, but downright offensive."
I even had a series of anecdotes lined up to support my views on monarchy in general. Here's one.
In 1992 I attended a performance of Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III at the National's Lyttleton Theater. For me, one of the most surprising moments was when the Charles Fox's character tossed this republican bomb concerning the rite and ritual surrounding the king: "Then why not be rid of him? If a few ramshackle colonists in America can send him packing, why can't we?" The line was met with a smattering of applause and laughter. In Britain. In the National Theater.
Other than those me-moments, I discovered I had nothing more to say about that sad couple who like many of the wealthy and famous cannot cope with the advantages they were given -- or whether there is any future for a medieval government model in this post-post-modern world.
And then I heard the wise advice of Heather Wilhelm."You know, when it comes to that particular topic, I'm not sure!"
There is far too much life to live here in Mexico without complicating it with the woes of the over-entitled. I do not need to have an opinion about other people's failings. That is just a schadenfreude too far for me.
So, unless the entire Windsor clan moves into the house across the street from me here in Mexico (because they will eventually be looking for living space), I will probably not touch on the topic of the unfortunate Sussexes and their spiral into Wallis Simpsonland.
Getting my laundry done is more important right now. And I do have an opinion on that.
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