‘Inspiring’ Quote, Alison? No Thanks
Friday 30th November 2012
In the spirit of the impending festive season…
Here is something that I simply do not ‘get’ – yes, I know I am fluffy and sparkly but come on, we all know that I am still a fluffy, sparkly
grouch. Sometimes. Which is possibly the best sort of grouch. I suppose. Anyway.
One of the things that really eludes me is the Inspirational Quote (or IQ as we will now know it). OK, sometimes I see an Inspirational Quote and I think: yes, that is true. It is patently true that if you never try anything new, for example since this seems to be a perennial favourite IQ, you will never, um, experience something new. I once tried intarsia. It was new. I experienced it. I once tried squid. Bleugh.
But I have never seen an Inspirational Quote and been
actually inspired by it. The best I can hope for is a neutral admission that I may agree with the statement, probably because it’s completely obvious. ‘Every journey starts with a single step’. Oh please. For one thing though this may be literally truthful, as well as glaringly obvious, most journeys start with an agonising knitting-packing dilemma, swiftly followed by a First Great Western balls-up.
I know these things and somehow I knew them before Face Book told me. Furthermore, I know lots of other things and yet (so far) have never felt compelled to commit them to a post-card sized notice, adorned with a flickering candle or ruddy sunset, in order to convey this to others.
Worse, even, than the Inspirational Quote is the Inspirational Picture/Quote Combo. I just do not get this at all. I seriously
never want to wake to an image of an adorable kitten curled up in a china tea-cup. It can’t just be me, confronted with a kitten-in-a-tea-cup, that veers between unreasonable and silent fury, and a wild thought about how awful it would be if someone didn’t
see the kitten – possibly like me, they are still all blurry with sleep – and they
poured a cup of tea without first checking for slumbering felines…
Nor do I react positively to a picture of a woman, laughing, as she (highly improbably) sits
in the basket of an old-fashioned bicycle as her boyish yet manly friend, also laughing, pedals them along a dusty track, low sun-beams shafting through the autumnal woods beside them, a cosy shack-style residence just visible, top right.
However, I can see that, as with another great mystery – yes, YOGA, I’m talking about you – some people do like the IQs and sometimes they like them even better with pictures. So, I appear to be out of step.
Again. I am dealing with it by staying away from its most frequented habitat: Face Book.
Oh now I always enjoy laughing at a good inspiring quote 😀
Over on Pinterest there’s a whole section of tragic and hilarious profound thoughts! http://pinterest.com/all/?category=quotes
I wish I did get it, but I just don’t. I have to say I was the same with intarsia 🙂
Wow Mooncalf, thanks for that link. Awesome. My personal favourite so far is ‘the meaning of life is to give life a meaning’, closely followed by ‘congrats on your face’.
I thought it was just me – glad to hear I’m not alone in my IQ rage!! Don’t get me started on the relentless cat pics, or indeed the relentless cat pics-with-additional-infuriating-slogan… This is why I prefer Twitter 🙂