"Grace" - from the (Australian Concise Oxford, 4th edition, 2004) dictionary -
- attractiveness, especially in elegance of proportion or manner or movement
- courteous good will (had the grace to apologize)
- an attractive feature; an accomplishment (social graces)
- in Christian belief - the unmerited favour of God/the state of receiving this
- goodwill
- delay granted as a favour (a year's grace)
- a short thanksgiving before or after a meal
- (Grace) (in Greek mythology) each of three beautiful sister goddesses, bestowers of beauty and charm
- (Grace) (preceded by His, Her, Your) forms of description or address for a duke, duchess, or archbishop
Once upon a time, I believed that to strive for grace in all my actions and attitudes was a proper and noble endeavour, that being gracious (kindhearted, benevolent, civil, obliging, considerate, merciful, magnanimous, charitable) was the pinnacle of human humanity. Indecorousness; this is a word that never rolled off the tongues of my well-meaning mentors when I was growing up, as they tried to instill a sense of proper conduct into my existence. Well, the times they are a changing, and, quite frankly, I've had it with grace (though, not really) and I wonder if incorporating some elements of gracelessness (uncouth, coarse, crude, boorish, ill-mannered, unsophisticated, shameless, tactless) into my persona would be a sensible, if not liberating, path.
Can too much graciousness be stultifying? Unhealthy? Would a little more obnoxiousness pave the way to enlightenment? A socially inappropriate, expletive ridden, tantrum-fuelled rant might exorcise even the most tightly imbedded of demons; either those of a personal nature or the ones that emanate directly from Hell. If only such outbursts didn't upset proximate people; but there might be a way around this unpleasant side effect. Perhaps all people could have a screaming rant at exactly the same time, then no-one would have to listen other people's offensive diatribes but, instead, everyone would be able to simultaneously get things off their collective chests. A Universal Unburdening. We, as a society, could schedule regular therapeutic yelling - just like the people did in that wacky Orwellian novel...although it wasn't framed as therapeutic yelling so much as it was framed as The Two Minutes Hate:
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."
[Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, pg 17]If an organized 'hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness' can contribute to a productive and accommodating society in a (so-called) dystopian novel, surely it can work in real life. After all, the novel does end on a happy note:
"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
[Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, pg 256]And surely to love is the greatest state to which humans can aspire, so to love Big Brother surely must be super-duper. And if we can achieve this state (of grace)(see what I did), then we can know that War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. And why has my seeming aversion to Grace led me to George Orwell? Maybe Grace is Vulgar. Or Grace is Obscene. Or Grace is Evil Incarnate. Or This Blog Post is Making Me Crazy...
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