Can’t we all just get along?
I have a friend who is quite e-famous. Lots of people know her or know about her. She’s known for her opinion and her artwork. Unfortunately, because of both, maybe, that means that a lot of people have an opinion on her and her artwork. This would be ok if those opinions were constructive, or solely focused on her work. Instead, they’re not. Instead, the comments she gets are horrible. Cruel. Mean. Cowardly. The vast majority of them? From women.
I don’t entirely understand why. They comment on everything from her face, her hair, her clothing, to the way she carries herself and speculations on her mental health.
It’s probably too simplistic to put it down to jealousy or Tall Poppy Syndrome. But what else can it be? The feeling that someone is getting too big for their boots, so they need to be taken down a peg, brought down a level, isn’t completely restricted to females, but it feels often that when females are disparaging other females, not their work but their bodies and them as people, that this is the reason.
It’s naive to think that we’re all going to be best friends and there’s an amazing sisterhood of women out there. But man, sometimes I wish there was a universal sisterhood. I wish people didn’t feel they had to put others down in order to build themselves up or make themselves look ‘cool’ in front of others. It doesn’t. It just makes them look insecure, immature and callous. And ultimately, it brings them down as well. I can’t imagine it would be very fun to always be a person who insults other people and says such cruel things about others. Why would you want to be like that?
Words hurt. Maybe the pain doesn’t show like physical pain does, but there is still pain. I wish I could just brush off insults, past wrongs and shit-talk, but I can’t. I dwell. Even when those insults aren’t directed at me and are directed at friends, I still dwell. It’s not entirely productive and it’s something I want to stop doing.
So, I’ve decided, I’m going to try and follow this piece of advice, which was attributed to Dr. Seuss, but apparently was said by Bernard Baruch. Whoever said it, it’s a valuable piece of advice to live by:
“Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
