Snow Melt

War Chest Tuesday: Trading Places and Other Complications

The March 26, 2013 prompt for "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  is
Have you ever wanted to trade places with someone else for a day, a week, or a lifetime? If so, who was it and why?

I remember a cartoon, I am not sure if it were Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry staring in the cartoon; what I remember most about the cartoon was that it was a Frankenstein Monster off take. In the cartoon was a mad scientist who built a machine that switched the the personalities or mental essence (I am not sure how this machine worked) of creatures from one animal to another. Any way the mad scientist switched Bugs Bunny's (I think it was Bugs) personality to the body of a chicken (I think it was a chicken) and the chicken's essence into Bugs' body. The switch caused each animal to act like the other until they somehow managed to get their essences switched back.

I thought the switch was funny because it was happening to cartoon animals, which I find amusing. I do not think I would find this type of switch (trading places) amusing it it was happening to me; perhaps after the experience was over, but not at the time. This does not answer the question Have I ever wanted to trade places with someone else? There have been times in my life when I wished I was not me, but that is different from wanting to trade places with someone else. I am glade I never got the wish because the transformation into something or someone else would not have solved the problem.

Have I ever wanted to trade places with someone else? No! A hundred times no. My life is complicated enough without complicating it even more with someone else's idiosyncrasies. While walking in someone else's moccasin will increase understanding, it will also hurt your feet if the moccasins are too small or rub blisters on your heels if they are too big. If I want to understand someone's point of view then I can sit down and have a conversation, but I do not think trading places is going to help that much. I can look at other people's lives and think that they have it easier or better then I do; however this is not true because every one wears a mask in public.

A mask
conceals reality
both the beauty of virtues
and ugliness of vices.

Quote of the Day: "We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of." - Phil McGraw