Caution: Danger AheadChoose you words carefully ... they just might cut you

My fingers scurry furiously to keep up with my thoughts, getting the occasional break while the brain considers which path to take next.

Deep breath; inhale ... exhale. Breathe in ... breathe out.

I know where I want to go, but each word is met with careful consideration and heavy contemplation. Writing can be a very powerful tool, but one with many jagged edges that can sever metaphorical limbs - your own, someone else's, or both.

It's more than a matter of dotting all the "I's" and crossing the "T's." It's how you dot them; it's how you cross them. This makes all the difference between turning out a positive, polished piece of literary constructivism, or unwittingly stuffing a weapon into the hands of someone who could potentially cut you to the bone with it somewhere down the proverbial road when least expected.

The latter becomes all the more plausible if the written words in question first served to gash another's emotional skin, either by accident or cold, calculated purpose. But even if you mean no harm whatsoever, people need nary a good reason these days to wreak havoc in your world by any means necessary to further their own agendas.

Or just completely wreck your groove for the mere sake of being simple, negative, offended children.

Remember the old "sticks and stones" mantra from the faraway land of playground tiffs and what-ifs?

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

There were variants, sure. Like, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

But the purpose was one and the same. This old cliche provided the standard shield against any and all forms of verbal torment. It was the foolproof trump card; the last line of defense to let your adversaries know with no uncertainty that you were impervious to such triteness and that his or her words carried no weight or held no water.

Uttering those words was like saying, without saying, "Take that, crackpot ... and get to steppin' with your dumb ass."

Crackpot? Wow, not sure where that came from, because I haven't heard that word since way before the cows came home. But it made me laugh, and it rolls off the tongue so well (go ahead, try it out). So here it will stay.

My apologies - back to the playground.

"Take that, crackpot ..."

You were then free to smugly take your ball and walk away from confrontation with the upper hand. That is, of course, unless the other person proceeded to use his or her upper hand to slap a hickey across your eye.

And then steal your ball. And then jam a screwdriver into it. And then stuff its deflated skin into your mouth while singing nursery rhymes and laughing maniacally.

Before leaving you face-down in the mud.

Sticks and stones, you know. Hopefully, none of that has ever happened to you.

The brutal truth is that this common saying is, despite its lofty intention, not the truth at all. It wasn't then, and it sure as hell isn't now. Words are, and always have been, right on par with those "sticks and stones" and the damage they can do if recklessly tossed around like yard darts. And with today's overall societal sensitivity meter cranked up to eleven, literally anything can be perceived as such.

You know what they say. It's all fun and games until someone takes a yard dart to the puss.

As many of you probably know, our words must be chosen as carefully as our battles these days, lest we find ourselves dragged into battles we never intended to fight. And now with social media outlets providing all sorts of traps for people to fall into - which they so often do, sometimes in spectacularly destructive fashion - digital footprints ensure that we can never escape our own words or thoughts after hitting that send, post, save, like, love, hate, laugh, cry, hug, slap, kick, spit or kiss button.

It's all so exhausting, is it not? I liken it to following a single fan blade with the speed stuck on high. At least with the fan, you can say ridiculous things into it while attempting to sound like Darth Vader.

Have you ever done that? If not, you should. It's a gas.

Today's art of stamping our innermost temporary thoughts into permanent public prose (purple, anyone?) can be much less amusing, especially when it turns on someone and bites them with gnarled teeth and rabid toxicity.

Such convenient methods of sharing how we feel or what we're thinking at all times can lull us into a false sense of delusional security. We feel that the entire dangerous, anonymous world of cyberspace is narrowed down to the size of our palms, therefore we control it. Further, we believe that the comfort of our homes, living rooms, or bedrooms affords us the safety to type whatever unvetted ideas happen to casually leak from our casual thumbs.

Those names and faces we see on the screen? They are just that, we believe - names and faces. We know that some of them are real people, because we occasionally see them wandering around in the real world buying groceries or socks. Even though we turn our heads and pretend not to notice them, we know they exist in an alternate reality that doesn't fit into the palms of our hands.

By way of some strange magic, however, this logic fails brilliantly when transfixed by the glow of that goddamn screen.

And the vortex ... it does not discriminate. It transcends all barriers - social, economic, racial, etc. It matters not what you identify as in the black hole of blue light, my friend. Not in the least.

This dog has teeth. Believe it. It will bite anyone. Believe that, too.

How many times have you read the news about a public official, teacher, doctor, police officer or some other professional held to a high standard who slipped and fell into the trap? Something they wrote and shared online has cost them dearly. It's cost them their job, or their marriage, or their general livelihood, or two heaping sacks full of their cash.

Or, in extreme cases, something even more ... extreme.

I know you're with me here. It happens all the livelong day, ad nauseam. Sometimes the "offense" is mind-blowing and worth the penalty due to its harmful impact at large. But it doesn't even have to be anything too over the top.

In the court of public opinion, all that needs to happen is a ruffling of the right feathers.

Or the wrong ones, depending on how you see it. The outcome is all the same.

And it's true, I tell you. I saw it on my phone, so I know it's real.

Many other people are forever branded by not necessarily as much their true character as a moment of cataclysmic judgment. Because the wine was smooth, the scotch was hairy or the lights were soothing, they felt it safe to post a photo, meme, or word salad describing precisely how they felt about a certain this or that.

And then like starving, stark-mad carnivores, the mob is there to pounce. And pounce, they will, and you might be surprised by who is lurking in that shadow of judgment or how little it takes to set them off.

Because those harmless electronic names and faces? It turns out that they are real people after all, and some of them don't like you very much.

But how could this be? After all, they were right there in that prideful list of a thousand or more "friends" that you really don't know. How could they have turned on you so coldly and boldly for ranting like a babbling boob about your political identification, sexual preference, or favorite cut of steak?

And how could you have been turned down for that job just because the hiring manager looked you up on social media and saw you in a picture, grinning like a villain while doing a keg stand with a half-full bottle of NyQuil placed where it never, ever should be?

Because, like it or not, this is precisely where we are now - a shady new world where shiny objects are the new sticks and stones. 

And words still hurt like crazy.

But I have to say, that NyQuil thing ... that could suggest suspect character and warrant some professional intervention. I'm not judging, but I would opt to hire someone who refrains from this type of roughhousing or at least posts photos of it. If this is you ...

Just take care of yourself, OK?

Remember, words and photos can be deleted, but screenshots and other technological advancements give them everlasting life.

Digital footprints last forever. I'm creating one right now; one which I hope you won't use against me should I ever decide to run for public office someday. It's also a digital footprint I hope you won't brush the dirt from ten years down the road and throw back in my face, attempting to manipulate me in some way to meet an insidious agenda.

You know, for having been just another babbling boob to people staring at screens in a former lifetime that made very little sense at all.

I trust you won't.

And I don't trust anyone.

Sticks and stones, my friend.

Sticks and stones.