When my uncle was a child, he was sometimes chased down his apartment complex’s flights of stairs by my grandma with a belt, escaping what must have been wild beatings. For my grandma recounting it? Comedy gold. For my uncle? Absolute trauma. Yet for both, this was a common occurrence in their time within the world of respecting manners.

This, and my father’s wrath when a curse word slipped out, are what the author likes to think about when someone asks about keeping good manners. Though, do not think it is because the author views manners in a cynical, indifferent, spiteful, hateful, nauseating, fatalistic, or otherwise mind-altering way or of no significant consequence at all.

In fact, this author, like everyone else, thinks about manners at every moment, second, and hour. Even as the author determines every word he types and how every sentence is structured. Think about it, one could very much write slanderous or insulting remarks without pause. Why not look for your closest living human being and tell them ‘You’re ugly’? Not to promote impulsiveness, but truly, it is because we have an ingrained code deep within ourselves. Some of you will say that this is just basic decency, or politeness or other, rather irksome, gibberings, but they all come due to manners. They are things you learn growing up, well, we hope (if you were raised by ocean coral, this article may not apply to you).

This author, like everyone else, thinks about manners at every moment

Manners: often remembered by the consequence of not acquiring them, being high decibel words, which pierced the air or for the unlucky, very solid things that pierced you instead. Kept by some as doctrine, manners hang around. Oh, and trust that they do, or else we would be seeing a lot more naked people running around, screaming at the top of their lungs.

So they are definitely valuable, like a person values their kidney. You don’t think about their importance, but they’re saving you from all those late-night pub crawls. Now, you might be asking, my serendipitous reader, does this valuation change? Well, some people like to kill their kidneys with concoctions of whiskey, tequila and rum, while others prefer not to. Also, what you what you think is a ‘good’ manner might be different from what this author thinks. Moreover, it is clear that our everyday ruminations with the screen, people, or a lack of human interaction at all affect our continually shifting, perplexing moral hierarchy of manners. Don’t ask this author, however, because he believes in the revolutionary  manners of liberation and moral equality.

Of course, whole sessions of pessimistic, calamitous, world-ending reel scrolling might not make you greet someone by kicking them in the privates instead of with an ‘Ello. Yet, with your emotion drained and the indifference slipping in, your value for manners changes. You might not notice at first, but once you stop overthinking your “pleases,” “thank yous”, stop listening and being thoughtful with your family and friends, using lies on a daily basis, and worst of all not buying this author a pint of beer.

With your emotion drained and the indifference slipping in, your value for manners changes

Small things achieve great results, and in this case, an increasing lack of care is proportional to an increasing lack of value. Not that low value means absolute null manners: think of it like stealing a car: unless you take off the plates and remove the GPS, some people might get angry. Ultimately, the ‘code’ for manners is within all of us, but motivation, care, value, and maybe some extra petrol money for the stolen car are necessary.

 So, finally, before ending your torment, with this lecture, what can you do to be one with your manners? You can always feed it with kindness, sincerity, honour, authenticity, and Tesco Finest salted caramel and chocolate hot cross buns for extra points. Furthermore, just doing good things, why the heck not? Keep this advice somewhere in your soul, because you will forget about this article tomorrow for sure. Manners will always be in your heart, whether you think about them or not!

Image: cottonbro studios vis Pexels