An Ugly Word

It is late here. I woke-up thinking about an ugly word. Perhaps it is just the homesickness that woke me up, maybe it is the fact that I really do need an alarm clock, that isn’t my telephone, so late next text messages don’t wake me up or is possible for one word to float around your brain and cause you to get up in the middle of the night. Pretty words like delightful, peaceful, compassion and kindness help you sleep. Like the comfort I get from seeing each of my fridge magnets, sweet words bring you a sense of calm. 

Tonight I woke-up thinking about the nasty word, disingenuous. 

Disingenuous
adj.

1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating: “an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who … exemplified … the most disagreeable traits of his time” (David Cannadine).

2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.

3. Usage Problem Unaware or uninformed; naive.

A word that represents such an ugly trait. I mean how do you know if people are being disingenuous? It would be nice if some alarm sounded or you were handed a red flag every time you met someone who was going to be disingenuous but sadly that isn’t the case. So as you travel how do you deal with or protect yourself from the disingenuous without shutting out the truly genuine and beautiful people? 

I guess you ask questions, you listen, you hope, you pray and if you trust the wrong people every once and a while you just deal with it and try to clean up the mess. Maybe or maybe not. Clearly I don’t have the answer for this as it is almost midnight and I am still pondering this frightful word. 

“Fear is temporary. Regret is forever.”
 ترجمة عربية. 

Oct 21, 2009 | Categories: Words | Tags: disingenuous, Words | Leave A Comment »