A Dog's Eye: Much ado about nothing

The name of one of Shakespeare's plays. Much Ado About Nothing, entered the vernacular as an expression meaning to make a big deal about something which is either untrue or not such a big deal. The essence of it is found in two idioms.

1. to bark up the wrong tree which means to get worked up over something based on false assumption or an accepted lie. The dog starts pawing the trunk of a tree, looking up into it and barking in the belief there is something up there - a cat or some other creature which it feels compelled to attack - but it is barking at nothing, because there is nothing in that tree. Thus it is making a big fuss, much ado, about nothing.

2. To make a mountain out of a molehill means to get really upset over a small matter. To be fair, there is some element of subjectivity involved here in terms of what constitutes a mountain of an issue compared with a molehill of an issue, but the saying is used to express the idea that the person getting upset is overreacting. They are making much ado about nothing.

People say these things to other people when a. they know the truth and the receiver is acting on false information, or b. the speaker disagrees with the importance of the issue which the receiver is getting upset about it. The speaker does not feel the same way so naturally they perceive the others's expression of angst, fear, or outrage as 'over the top.'

Most people are passionate about something. Many people feel aggrieved when others don't share those passions or don't understand them. Many people support various causes and often request their friends, families and others to support those causes too. I'm growing a moustache for Movember again this year and as I usually do, I sent text messages to all my phone contacts asking for a donation. 95% of people didn't respond. A few people responded, but didn't donate. A handful of others donated, and even less people got so upset they felt the need to tell me how offended they were. In this case, I'm talking about one person in particular who suggested my cause was trivial compared to his and rambled about a lack of support for what he was doing. I knew nothing about it.

I also have a book launch coming up next week for my memoir, I Used to be an Animal Lover. It's not a cause, like Movember, because it's personal. I'm trying to sell my book and to do that I need to advertise. I've been using Facebook ads which have resulted in a massive increase in engagements on the I Used to be an Animal Lover page. What I was looking for, from those reactions, was people to sign up for Advanced Review Copies and register for the book launch. It's also great to get comments rather than just reactions. However, as with my Movember texts, the results of my advertising campaign have been predictably, but nonetheless disappointingly poor.

Zero event registrations. Zero ARC expressions of interest and only two comments on the most recently sponsored post. You can see the comments below, but essentially the only two people who took the time to comment were very upset about my ad appearing in their news feed. 

Here's my philosophy about all this in a nutshell.

1. If you don't appreciate something, or can't see any value in it, then ignore it.

2. Never expect people to care about your passions and causes as much as you do.

3. Be prepared to cop criticism or even abuse from those who don't follow number 2.

4. Life is too short to making much ado about nothing.

What Really Matters.

I've worked out what is wrong with the world. There are of course many things wrong with the world and everyone knows it except those people who choose to ignore blatant and omnipresent evil and talk about how beautiful the spirit of humanity is.

Put simply it's all to do with priorities. The things people are passionate about and into which they pour themselves. Most of us are devoted disciples of someone or something despite protestations about how independent and clever we are. There is no such thing as a self made man or woman. To make such a claim about yourself is extreme arrogance. But I digress.

The things we care most about are the things into which we invest most of our resources; time, money and skills.They are our first choice topics of conversation and the things which aggressively occupy our thoughts.

Somethings in this world are worth that investment. Others are not. The problem with the world is that too many people are throwing themselves into worthless and trivial pursuits. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against trivial pursuits. I surf the World Wide Web for at least some part of every day of my life. I listen to Heavy Metal and I watch cricket and sitcoms but would I die to save Heavy Metal? Would I cry, or worse kill myself if my favorite band split up? If my favorite TV show was pulled off air? Am I disturbed to the point of insomnia that T20 cricket is perceived by some as threat to Test cricket? Would I slash my wrists if I lost my internet connection?

Bring it closer to home. Does it matter if my wife can't bring herself to park the car in the garage? That my teenage son's idea of cleaning his room is to toss all his clothes into the wardrobe and shut the door? That my daughter would rather stand in a dark corner of the living room than sit at her well lit desk to do her homework?

In the song, While You Were Sleeping,Casting Crowns says, "we are sung to sleep by philosophies of save the trees and kill the children." Get the point? While I know that millions of children are being abused and exploited in the most horrific ways imaginable, I can't bring myself to give two hoots about the death of a whale and if someone wants to chop down some trees, well good luck to them.

What matters to you, and what should really matter to you?