Have you ever noticed how critics so often put themselves above the object of their criticism?
A critic being someone who was not fooled, someone really cool, someone who so often knows better.

Did I really know much (if any) more than whoever selects quotations for our morning newspaper?
You could say that whoever selected a quotation may have meant for some nitpicky type to have some kind of reaction, and hopefully blog about it somewhere to add further energy to the ripples radiating out from centre.
Maybe I was just a pawn in a little game. And even worse, maybe I was so gullible that I had not even recognized my humble place in the far greater scheme of things?

OK, time to reframe the whole thing…

That was not criticism - it was merely an observation. I was not playing the critic - I was just an observor.
An observor has a more comfortable role, there on the sidelines, not actually participating, not really doing anything for which they could possibly be called accountable, a kind of lack-courage position.
Oh-oh, maybe that's not so comfortable either. After all, I wouldn't want anyone to see anything in me that could have me branded a coward!

How about musings? I was just thinking, mulling over aloud, generously sharing some private thoughts.
Yes, that sounds much better. That shows I actually have something surrounding the ventricles enclosed by my skull, and even some of their number appear connected and firing, randomly though that may be. I probably won't have to be so accountable for musings. Perhaps even the ancient Muses had something to do with it, and I was just converting to words primordial vibrations detected from the cosmic unconscious… or something like that?

Oh yes, Judah, how much you like to think in spirals and tangents, playing the sounds of words in an orchestra of meanings, following will o' the wisps in the marshes of musings! I know you, Judah, you're pulling our legs!
Who me? You know I wouldn't do that. Well, don't you?

Beware of musings!
Cognition precedes behaviour, and beneath our thoughts lie our beliefs and attitudes from which they were born. Our thoughts may well be the little piggies in the middle, but no matter what their names (criticism, observation, musings) it is the little piggies that will eventually have their way.
Beware the little piggies!

A blog it is a funny thing
Full of words, a song to sing
A way of saying what I like
As ratbag, rascal, little tyke

What I write is what I think
The moment paper contacts ink
Or keyboard keys depress on touch
Just as my gears of thought declutch

You who read may have your say
Click on "comments", do I pray
Add your bit and share a line
Have your piggies play with mine!

Oink oink?