There is that word again. It's a familiar term to myself actually. This word " Pretentious " I hear it quite often, perhaps you may have as well? An interesting affect that word seems to have though I find the meaning may have been lost with the candle. The definition is fully intact however the application, as it were with so many things, has gone through this alchemical process, this transitive state of identity. You see, it has become that of less objective but rather detractive statement on a work or idea.

One might have once said for snake oil salesman as they peddled their fine cure all's that the ideals and investment were a pretentious figure and who are we to disagree with that regard? There is a protective matter in that necessary stance: to maintain investment or initial value of the consumer or examiner. Of course now these days it may very well be the throw around word, the dinner bell for the aggressors than protectors.

I had once sat a fine afternoon in a nearby park and listened as the children played on their swings and whatever else children might do, when I heard a particular girl discussing her discoveries of unique fish beneath the oceans. Oh it was a curiosity and how both clever and invested she had been. Only the answer in return from her listeners were " You're just a nerd! Talking all big! " and the other children began to cheer in this odd display " Nerd! Nerd! Nerd! " Do you understand where I go with this? Yes, no?

It's a harmful word because for some, they begin to believe it's true. It's not constructive, it's not a criticism. It is purely a remark of detraction from an individual whom may have very well felt left out of the idea. Who may feel threatened if only for that fleeting second of their awareness that they may very well not get it. So they will say these harmful words and swear by them that there is nothing more to what they are seeing. This aggressive apathy as it were, investing in the notion that if you have interest and excitement or dare I say depth to your world...you are being quite pretentious.

So I would like for you to do something the next time someone might say you are..oh I don't know..trying too hard, or that you're making more of something than there is. I want you to imagine this individual as a child whom may very well be scared. That they may find they have less control of their surroundings and lives. If apathy is their sword then your retaliation must be to continue your work, unaffected, unresolved, and unsatisfied until they've nothing left to say, just as it were to begin with. Now then...off with you. Be well. I mean it now, shoo!