"Esta" vs "Es": For the Moment

I was thinking about this the other day (a refresher because I've thought about it on other days before), that maybe the reason we get so angry, so defensive, so upset when we are criticized is because we think that criticism lasts forever. 

For example, if you look at the Comments section of any online news article (which I recommend you never do unless you want to be reminded of the pettiness and nastiness of some of the people who make up this world), you will see that there is an awful lot of criticism.  The thing about this criticism, and criticism in general, however, is that it is very rarely eternal -- at least for the critic.  You might say "so-and-so this, and so-and-so that" but the next day, the next month, the next year, the next decade, you might change your mind and feel more favorably about a topic or a person so that your criticism of yesterday, of yesteryear, no longer applies.  So for the critic, the criticism means nothing but a passing fling, a chance to make himself feel superior in pointing out others' supposed imperfections and forget his own -- nonetheless, a temporary remark that means nothing to him in the long run. 

For the one who is criticized, however, the criticism is not a temporary remark, but a permanent mark, a Scarlet Letter - if you will - of failure in some area.  And that is a poison that sticks with the criticized person as long as he would let it.  A criticism that meets its mark is like a dart that jabs a person, drawing blood, and leaving a scar he won't soon forget.  The person who threw the dart, the critic, on the other hand, gets to walk off scot-free and happy, forgetting what they have done.  That is, until a wounded person gets angry enough, not to jab back with a criticism, but to jab back for real with a knife or a gun, or any violent weapon that will make the point to the critic that they have been sorely emotionally hurt and are now seeking violent physical vengeance. 

This is the pattern it seems that most men fall into when unwitting looks, remarks, accidental incursions, or plain insults in such places as bars lead to hurt egos, which lead to fights and brawls, fists thrown, weapons drawn, shots fired, men injured or dead.  This is the pattern of emotional hurt being avenged with physical violence.  It is a pattern that happens all the time with men who are not allowed to share hurt feelings in anything but a violent and enraged manner.  A pattern that is sadly condoned and egged on by the society we live in.  But I won't go into all the terrible things that happen because men are not allowed to feel or express their hurt feelings at this time.  That is for another post. 


For this post, I would just like to say that perhaps what is needed is a change in speech, or rather an addition to it.  This is where I got the idea -- from the Spanish language.  In high school, where I took many years of Spanish, I learned that the Spanish language has two different forms of "is."  In English, we only have one, "is" and that is it.  But for Spanish speakers, there is "esta" and "es," which essentially mean the same thing, except that one is temporal and the other is permanent. 

I thought this framework was weird back in the day.  Only recently have I seen how handy it might be.  One, esta, is used when speaking of temporal things, like how well you are: "Estoy bien."  "I am well (for the moment)."  The other, es, is used when speaking of more permanent things, like the color of water: "Agua es azul."  "Water is blue (permanently)."  That is true.  Water is always blue.  I had trouble with this concept in high school because it was so new to me, not having it to digest in the English language, but as I thought about it, I really came to like the idea of creating two forms of "is."  After all, some things "are" a certain way, but only temporarily, and some things "are" a certain way, and permanently, for as long as people have known it. 

If my logic holds true, it would be beneficial for us to add this concept to the English language.  That is to say, not to add another form of "is" because people would have trouble using it or remembering it, but to add a clause that is like the temporal form of "esta" to everything we say that is temporal.  For, for now, we only have the permanent form of "es" when we say "is."  "It is this way."  We only have a permanent way of looking at things, which might not fit the truth of the moment.  So what if we added this qualifier at the end of every criticism: "for the moment."  Would not that help ease hurt feelings?  For now, when someone criticizes you it is easy to take it to heart that it is an eternal criticism that can never be erased or changed, which is usually not true.  So, what if we add this qualifier: "for the moment"?  As in:  "Excuse me, Sir.  You suck, for the moment."  "I hate you, for the moment."  "Nothing is working out for me, for the moment."  Would not this little clause help ease any feelings of intense hate the criticized person would feel, as well as surprisingly ease the indignation of the critic?  I think so. 

For it is like Jack Canfield says, an "always or never" Automatic Negative Thought (ANT), that gets us in so much trouble and gets us feeling so terrible.  It is only when we realize that these thoughts are temporal, these remarks only exist for the moment, that our anger and defensiveness dissipates.  After all, we can all suck sometimes.  We can all be hated sometimes.  It is only an eternal suckiness, an eternal hatred that can not be borne. 

And the other thing to note is that criticism, though it may hurt as much if not more than real physical pain, is not real physical pain.  When you are pricked, and blood is drawn, you hurt; your body does that for you.  But when you are criticized, insulted perhaps, you are not pricked or bleeding, yet you hurt; your mind does that for you.  However, the difference is, the wonderful difference is that when you are criticized, you don't need to feel the automatic hurt that you would feel if you were really physically hurt.  Physical hurt can't be helped.  But you can help if you feel emotional hurt.  It is like what I told my supervisor once when I said something I thought innocuous, but he found to be noxious (and this just came out of me, by the way, without forethought), "You can't be offended unless you want to be."  And that's the truth.

You can be impervious to the criticism, you can be protected against the emotional hurt, by bravely and wisely not letting it affect you, by letting it bounce off your body like rubber (as in that famous schoolyard rhyme:  I'm rubber and you're glue.  Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.").  You can not care and not be pierced by anything.  Your skin can remain smooth and untouched, your blood unspilt, your hurt never materializing.  It is possible.  You can build a mental shield around yourself, and protect yourself from emotional and mental anguish.  And for starters you can include the caveat of adding to any criticism, any insult:  "for the moment."