join the parade

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The verb "coddle" is defined in part by an Internet dictionary as:

-- to treat someone in a way that gives them too much protection from harm or difficult experiences

In the playground near which the Subarus are parked, a caring mother may be heard saying to her small child, "Good joooooob!" And in spiritual endeavor, the loving God (or mystical entity) who may send you to hell is often portrayed as saying much the same of his/her/its devotees.

Don't get me wrong: I like a hug and a kiss and an upbeat encouragement as well as the next person. No one likes being the constant butt of criticism, whether from without or within. But without trying to sell anyone anything, I wonder how well comfort or criticism works out ... on the ground, in anyone's actual life.

Life doesn't coddle or criticize, does it? And those who gnash their teeth about an "uncaring universe" are overstating the case by quite a lot. Life offers up the facts ... after which coddling and criticizing human beings get to work.

Martin Luther King once observed more or less, "It's not what's wrong with the world that scares people. What really scares them is that everything is all right." This is easy to type and easy to say and easy to marvel at, but it is hard as hell to actualize. And actualization is the only thing life will accept without a forgivable snicker.

Life, after all, is nothing but actualization.

I figure we might as well join the inescapable parade.
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