Kind Of….

The catastrophe here in Colorado is something that I would expect to see in a movie. It is beyond a catastrophe and the floods are still surging into Nebraska.  My post today is actually not about the strife of the flooding, loss of life, nor the property lost to the poor people who have suffered.  These stories are already written and have the event well covered. This post is about the live news coverage and the on the spot reporters who, in their vast array of word knowledge, could only KIND OF put their words together.  Don’t get me wrong, the reporters are brave souls who venture out and face dangers in every type of disaster and l, for one am glad that they were out there and not me.  What they do is quite heroic in its own way.

A news report came from one of the many flooded areas. The reporter told her listeners that there was water kind of everywhere. Really?! The camera shot most certainly showed water all over the place. Do rivers and streams only kind of go over their banks?  Throughout this report, and others, I heard the newscasters say, “kind of” more times than I could count.  The water kind of went through the house behind me….  This car kind of came down stream…. Raw sewage is kind of leaking into the flood waters….  The water WENT through that house and destroyed it, there IS raw sewage in the flood waters, and vehicles of every kind DID float into houses, and pile up everywhere.  There is, and was, no kind of about it.

These two little words are a non-commitment that gives everyone an excuse out.  A person should commit to the situation, “the car floated down stream.” This simple statement commits the speaker to the fact that the car did indeed float down the stream, but what if it was already there?  What if there was no floating involved?  This lack of confidence, in terms of speaking, has permeated our culture.  Are we so afraid of saying that something IS?  Have we lost the confidence in the use of the word “is” that we now have to fall back on “kind of”?  Take these famous quotes (Shelley, Einstein, Buddha), and how they are completely deflated when there is that added piece of uncertainty.

Go forth and kind of prosper.

Imagination is kind of more important  than knowledge.

The tongue like a sharp knife kind of kills without drawing blood.

The rivers in Colorado didn’t kind of overflow their banks, they did. Let’s take those two words and put them to better use.  Colorado is a proud state and will be a stronger community.  The flood waters are receding but the mud remains everywhere.  Are the people kind of taking care of it?  No, they are tackling it.  They have shovels, buckets, and strong backs that will scrub every nook and cranny where the mud is.  I hope that the media does more than kind of follow the clean up.