[Edit 18th September 2023 – calling me rude names as a last reposte on twitter will also usually get a “lol” – genuinely funny to me as you run out of mental runway…]
Recently, I have found myself responding to people I disagree with on twitter by simply using “lol”.
My “lol” means “I disagree but I cannot be bothered arguing with you, and I find our predicament – that we’re never going to agree – amusing”.
It seems that my anger at how SARS-CoV-2 was handled has dissipated as my position on how I would behave if this “handlingβ (ie., lockdowns and the administration of COVID vaccines) was ever repeated, has hardened.
I have written before about fear; I am not a fearful type. The author, Alastair Reynolds, describes a soldier’s definition of fear as simply “situational awareness” and I subscribe to this viewpoint.
So there is also a certain amount of contempt in my “lol” because the correspondent, in my opinion, is fearful, whereas I am not.
For me, every day is ripe with the potential for a new adventure, and not necessarily a pleasant one.
For example, when I was in Colombia in February this year, myself and another paragliding pilot were busted by two Colombian policemen for smoking a spliff that we had made to celebrate our landing out in the countryside.
In my panic, I attempted to bribe one of the officers and was quickly rebuffed – so two offences then. π€·π½ββοΈ
Eventually, after we had made all the right noises and they had checked our passports, they scolded us, told us we could go to jail and then let us off. They even handed back the spliff. Lovely young guys in their 30’s.
Maybe we reminded them of their Dads. Who knows?
My point is that, during this whole stressful event, there was a small part of me that was looking forward to spending some time in a Colombian jail ….
[I have also landed in Palampur army base in India and been surrounded by angry Indian soldiers equipped with handguns and shouting in Hindi – that’s maybe a story for another day.]
However, back to the point I’m trying to make; there is that same small, wild, part of me that is keen to meet the “men with hoes“.
So, if I respond to you with a “lol” on twitter, it might be because I am amused that you are fearful, wrong and beyond any attempt at saving.
Pitiful in fact.
Or you may have just made me laugh.
But at least you got a response unlike some people.
