I saw a trailer for some sort of reality show today, one of those American ones which focuses on people running a business. Each member of the team was introduced with some comment about what they brought to the business. No comment was made about their bodies. Even the women, who was very beautiful, was only described in terms of her skills and no mention was made to her being 'hot' which is somewhat unusual and was nice to see.
There was a shorter man on the team and they said something along the lines of 'This is Bob, he's only 5 foot 5 but he has a big heart'.
Why on Earth did they feel the need to say this? It was almost like they were apologising for the fact that he was a shorter man. It felt like what they were saying is 'Hey everyone this is Bob, he's short, but don't let that worry you, he is still a fully functional human being with the normal amount of human emotions.'
The tone of the comment made it seem like being shorter was a defect so bad it needed to be offset by some other positive quality.
It's this sort of thing, just quietly tucked away in the back ground of everyday life, that I want to show people when they claim that 'heightism' isn't a thing. If no one cares how tall you are, why do people feel the need to explain away a mans height.
It's mainly being about whether one is a crowd follower or his own man (adjust for females), and how you were raised. A strong person is able to see thru the BS. Myself, I had my first fight with two bigger kids, around age 6, and I beat them to crying to their momma across the street. I'll never forget the look on her face as they pointed me out to them. They started it. From then on, I never viewed size as an advantage anything special. I'm around Bruce Lee's size, height and weight, so it was simple to study fighting as I grew up. And I saw that really tough guys were mostly in the 'short' range. In sport, of course the rules may favor the taller, heavier person .. for example, basketball. What would happen if the rules were changed and the basket was on the floor? The you would see skill vs. skill. I saw a photo of medal of honor recipients reunion on an aircraft flight deck. Most of those guys were 'average' .. I would venture in the 5' 6 -- 5' 9 category. There were no big muscular guys. (In fact, the real 'James Bond' laughs at the big guys, he's only around 5' 6 or so; he's probably the most dangerous guy in the world, (he may be retired now).. he said, 1/ a big guy stands out in a crowd; if you're doing spec ops, you want to blend in 2/ the big muscles are mainly for show, and don't prove the guy is really tough. A US SEAL honcho said much the same thing: "We have a lot of Adonises come thru and they mostly wash out..." Another SEAL instructor said that a lot of the shorter guys would have long careers, they had a lot of staying power, but the bigger guys would grow old faster. I've noticed this. Tall guys get old fast. But smaller guys can be the same age, but they are healthier. Speaking of war, today the Taliban fears the Gurkas the most, more than any other spec ops guys, and the Gurks are in the 5' 6 range. Audie Murphy in WW II was the most decorated soldier, and he was 115 pounds dripping wet. I know several stories from flight attendants traveling with football teams: there's severe turbulence (what's called turbulence by most non-pilots), and the football guys are shaking in their seats, while the regular guys are nonplussed. I could go on and on, but will stop with this: in sport fighting or sport in general there are rules. When there are no rules there's no such thing as 'when there's a good big guy and a good small guy, the small guy will usually lose' that's not true. Bruce Lee himself said, don't be intimidated just because a guy is flexing his big body. The smaller guy has the advantage, unless he's just going to stand there in one position. He's quicker in reaction and movement. It's like a fighter jet against a bomber. If the jet stays in one place of course the bomber can just whale away. Note that in war the smaller force can defeat the larger force. If they had 'rules' then the larger force would win. So don't accept the 'rules' of 'society' -- in every field it's the person who thinks things out for himself who has the advantage, and not the crowd follower. The confidant woman, the confidant man ... they look into the heart.
ReplyDelete