Yelling at People

I love to yell.

My friends don't like this about me, but thankfully, they haven't disowned me yet for it. I just love to yell. Maybe I feel it communicates my excited fervor more satisfactorily than if I just talk in a regular old volume. Because I'm a well-integrated member of society, I realize that cultural propriety severely limits the occasions when it is appropriate for me to yell. I have never quite forgiven culture for this. Yelling at sporting events is OK, and yelling across distances is OK if you're outside, and yelling if there's an emergency is OK. Do you realize how limiting this is? How absolutely stifled I feel? Ugh.

If I could yell at will, I would probably yell about most things. I would yell about happy things…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I AM SO GLAD WE'RE FRIENDS!

I JUST LOVE COWS, ISN'T THAT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MILK COW YOU'VE EVER SEEN?!

I would yell sad things…

I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE BREAK THEIR PROMISES!

I’M SO SORRY YOU'RE SICK!

I would yell mad things…

I FORGOT THAT ASSIGNMENT!

DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!

For the sake of the rest of the world, it's probably a good thing that cultural norms have curbed my volume and verbiage. If I didn't think it would hurt people's feelings, sometimes I would yell at them that they're being absolutely ridiculous. This usually happens when I'm talking with people who should know better but don't seem to, like people who say they follow Jesus but do really immature things, or people who sneer ad hominem arguments that are demeaning and illogical. Instead of yelling at people, I just blog. You don't know who I'm talking about, and most of the time I'm just generalizing anyway.

I was talking to SG about it the other day. A situation happened and a person did something dumb that they knew was dumb. I wasn't there, but I yelled afterwards to make up for my absence, which was convenient because the person wasn't there to witness my outburst. After I declared her a silly, unprincipled human, I realized what a dodobird I was being. How is it that I claim to know and love the grace of Jesus but fail so often to extend that grace to others? That's not an excuse for letting people do dumb things, but maybe there is something to that gentle, quiet restorative spirit.

As of now, I haven't yelled anything at anyone in anger, but I'm still working on decreasing my happy yelling. From what I can tell, sometimes it's just annoying, and I dread and loathe the idea of being annoying. Maybe I'll just buy a field for yelling. Then I can just shout away all kinds of things and be the calmest, collected girl there ever was when I have to be. Guess I'd better start saving for a field or something.

LMS