Commentary: Examining life’s unfiltered comments

When I was a little girl, we would occasionally get a piece of hard candy wrapped in colored cellophane.

I was as delighted with the colored wrapper as I was with the candy.

I loved looking through the yellow or red or blue or green paper and seeing my world in a different light. I used to save the little squares of color.

In high school, the song “La Vie en Rose” was popular, and Sister Gemma gave our French class the words to the song. I still remember them: “Quand il me prend dans ses bras, et il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose.”

It is as if the emotions of love color your world in a softer, sweeter light.

When I was in my 30s, I took photography classes, and I had all the paraphernalia back then that went with clunky cameras and long lenses. I had a yellow lens that fit over the regular one. It made black-and-white outdoors pictures much sharper.

All those things between me and my natural vision were filters. But they’re not our only filters. We have internal filters that exist between us and others.

One might be an internal caution to be careful not to say something that will get us in trouble. One might keep us from saying something that might hurt someone else.

I’ve heard it said that Donald Trump has no filters.

But this isn’t about him. It’s about a relative of mine, my cousin-in-law Randy.

Ever since Randy married my cousin, I have been encouraging everyone to cut the poor soul some slack because it’s hard to come into a big family, and it’s hard to do this, and it’s hard to do that. I am Randy’s biggest supporter.

We’re going to have a family reunion. I sent email invitations to all the relatives, saying that, to keep things less complicated, I was going to contact only one person in each family.

When I hadn’t heard from my cousin, even after three emails about the event, I wrote Randy.

In return, I got a lengthy email listing years of my slights and oversights and misspeaks and other perceived un-kindnesses. Honestly, I couldn’t remember some of the things, and some of them I couldn’t believe anyone could find fault with.

I know that sometimes I can be unkind, but I usually choose those times and those people with clarity and intent. I once told an acquaintance that she was without doubt the most unpleasant person I had ever met. But I said it in context and with aforethought.

Hey! I’m not claiming to be a perfect person.

And I don’t expect others to be perfect either. And — I know, I know — sometimes they have issues we know nothing about.

But all the same, it came as a surprise to discover that Randy has been compiling a list of my failures and decided to let loose that list of misdeeds.

Wowie, kazowie! Most of us would have just said, “Sorry, we’re busy that day.”

Some slices of life don’t strike you funny or make you feel good. They just make you think.

I think most of us either have genetic filters or we’re super-cautious not to hurt anyone’s feelings because that’s what our mothers or the nuns taught us when we were kids.

But I’ve often thought that our innate reticence to say what we’re thinking gives other people permission to blurt their vitriol, knowing that we won’t respond in kind.

Some people would say “no holds barred” and some might say “with the gloves on,” or off, or whichever of those is worse.

I say it’s done without filters.

Or, maybe through a treasured square of black cellophane.

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LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.