Chances are you’ve heard of the common phrase “Blood is thicker than water“; maybe your family has even strategically been using it to manipulate you into compliance every time you tried to voice an opinion of your own?
According to the general population, it refers to the shared blood of your familial heritage. Thus turning the phrase into the perfect companion piece along side other manipulative classics such as “as long as your feet are under my table you listen to what I say!“ and “if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?!?“.
Other than being used as verbal ammunition by irritating family members, this particular reading of the phrase completely undermines any significance different relationships might have in ones life.
Or does it?
Although there is no actual, factual proof that I can refer to, recently there has been a lot of discussion on the Internet about the meaning of that phrase and its possible misinterpretation; It has been brought up that the phrase might be misinterpreted not only in a figurative sense, but literally!
In that context some articles have claimed that the original quote reads as following:
“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb“.
Basically meaning: F*** yo family, they ain`t s***; the blood shed in battle by you and your brothers in arms means a hell of a lot more than whatever womb you happened to climb out of. Get wrecked, Mom.
Again, even if there is no actual proof for the historical validity of this version, I would argue that there is also no leverage to the original quote to begin with; why would water be representative of non-familial relationships? Oh yeah Dave, our thrilling and sincere friendship sure does remind me of the words most blandest substance! Its like that one Shakespeare poem where he absolutely trashes his mistress (how did he get away with this?), only worse and nonsensical.
If we really wanna get to the core of the linguistic matter, nothing really means anything. All of our words and phrases are made up and therefore meaningless and meaningful at the same time.
Which is why I believe one can choose which made up thing to believe in. If you are one of those people that get annoyed when people use “literally“ in a figurative sense, you might disagree with me; you might also be super lame at parties – prescriptivistic scum!
And so, firmly believing in the superiority of the latter phrasing, I safely assume that relationships outside of your own family do have meaning and are to be cherished.
Taking it one poetic step further, you could try to think about a modern way of shedding blood in battle, i.e. connecting with people. As much as I like all of you, I think we can establish our sympathies for one another without brutally murdering enemies and bathing in their blood…thank you very much.
However, seeing as blood is just too cool of a visual metaphor to simply abolish altogether, I herby submit the new, 2020 approved method of kinship though blood – donating!
Whats more hardcore than HAVING the literal blood of another person INSIDE of you, and vice versa?
Has this whole post just been a convoluted plot to get people to donate blood? Maybe? Does is really matter? Nah.
What really matters is that we currently face a challenge, that can only be resolved by collectively caring about what might happen to others. One way to support one another during those trying times is to donate blood, which is critically needed right now. If you are like me and need to project deeper literary meaning into each and every action you take in order to actually do it, try to remember the blood of the battle. Defy the assumption that we as people only care about the ones closest to us, starting with yourself.
I will leave you the link to the website of University Medicine Rostock, they have gathered all the information you might be interested in. As a certified lazy-ass, I am also obliged to tell you that its painfully easy to donate blood and really doesn’t take more than one hour of your time. The location of the blood donor service is right at the heart of the KTV in the Waldemarstraße 21D. [mappress mapid=”403″]
I know for a fact that all of you like to lounge around there all the time and stuff your faces with vegan food, might as well donate some of your eco-conscious blood cells while you’re at it.
Besides, if you’re broke there, is also the added bonus of a small monetary compensation of 20 bucks. Think about what one can do with 20 additional bucks! Buy 4 packs of cheap cigarettes, get new headphones, indulge in good quality fish or make a quick donation to the Black Lives Matter movement – in case you really want to cash in those Karma points (It goes without saying that this is sarcasm and doing the bare minimum does not offer any kind of karmic recognition, sorry to burst your bubble, lol).
If you want to read up some more info on donating blood during times of COVID-19 I´ll leave you with the link to The Blood Connections Website; they have put up all the recent and important information regarding the issue, in a concise and understandable way.
Remember: blood is thicker than water, so why not let other people have some of yours!