Necessary Madness

  The propensity of my quoting cannot be measured; or more accurately spoken, most of the time.  I was just toying with the notion of how often in conversation we use statistical references to influence our positions in arguments. 

   “90 percent of the time”  creeps into the fray quite often, but by whose account?  What research has been accomplished, and even if there was, can it be cited as being free of bias?  Yet, it is the tactic commonly used to inject such made up statistical reference models as a point of convincing; and yes I’d say its deceptive in its best case, and lying at its worst.  Some time ago I read Ethics for a New Millennium, by his holiness the Dali Lama, who by the way, has been publishing his insights since 1962; with his first being, My Land and My People. But this isn’t necessarily a plug for the Dali Lama’s writing career as much as being the point of bringing to light a uniqueness that has impressed me to the point of changing my reference to the way I use words.  His is an art of applied intention.  

He phrases; his observations; are made not in confrontational manner; that is also to say not too obscure either; not in the least.  His points are rivetingly simple and clear, yet non-accusatory. He can point to improper behavior without assigning judgment or suggesting punishment.  Yes, he is a pro.  Having witnessed that quality I look at words now at how they are used, and I consider them in a different perspective; oft as not I play with ways to make meaningful without faulting; no small task.  Just as I mentioned about statistics, I swerve away from statistical nudging now using...um…more colorful terms inviting dialog.  I no longer rely on a lofty, unproven percentage quote, using other common and useful terms.  90 per cent becomes ‘most times; 50 per cent becomes often; when minimizing for my arguments benefits I don’t use a small percentage, but say ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’.  Often that practice works; most times I think on it…even after the opportunity had passed.

  I am also ever on the lookout for a spoken phrase that transcends mundane.  Whether reading it or hearing, the effect makes my heart skip…I guess you have to be a wordsmith to get where that’s coming from.  Suffice to say, I enjoy sharing those moments of neoterisitic excellence of expression. Exempli gratia:

“Are you going to let me have a good time in my own quiet way, or must I take this place apart?” 

Bill Roberts  in The Docks of New York (1928)

The Consuming Faith

I have at my command, the power of faith

But I must be a student of that power, so that it does not consume me

As a fire consumes fuel

My evidence is experience, and with that I build trust.

And should that trust be tested and remain valid for me

I will place my belief into the soundness of that trust.

In time, if that belief proves also reliable, I will indulge my tendencies

To predict

And with doing that, place my precious hope into the cradle

Of my certainty.

And in that certainty remain faithful

for the sake of honoring my freedom to choose

respecting all the while

faith can burn like fire

for left unattended my faith can also consume me

by inattention to what is actual

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis

When you find that anything agrees with reason

And is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all

Then accept it and live up to it.

Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

The Sacred Point of View

  The story goes that a kindergarten pupil told his teach that he had found a cat, but it was dead.

   “How do you know the cat was dead?” she asked her pupil.

   “Because I pissed in its ear and it didn’t move,” the child replied.

   “You did WHAT?!” the teacher exclaimed in alarm.

   “You know,” explained the boy, “I leaned over and went “Psst!” and it didn’t move.”

 The above amusing dialog is but a precious demonstration of innocence colliding with a point of view expectation.  The joke reminds me over again how easily I can be seduced to embrace the worst of situations; more succinctly, to agree that others are motivated by despicable attributes.  All of that to say I practice assigning others intent.  As sorry as I am to report this on a public forum my possessing such foibles, forever sinking any fledgling hope of being informed I had won an election to a great and powerful position, I remain unabashedly naked in the light of truth.  I jump to conclusions; to the degree I climb into people’s skulls and believe…yes believe I know what they are thinking, feeling, and planning; just like the teacher had with her young protégé.   

Let me also add these are not the mistakes of adolescence, but continue to persist into my elder years; such as they are.  I’ve lost count of how many arguments I’ve been embroiled in based upon perception of what I felt others meant.  In every instance I engaged in emotionally laden combat rather than speak in kinder tones requesting clarification. Time and again in the aftermath, should peace be resorted, and where revisiting what each meant could be discussed without eogic ownership of the sacred position of rightness, it would be revealed once again by a shared, surprised exclamation of

“Oh, I thought you meant…”

    Mistaken assumptions compounded by accusation and insult.  But never mind all of that in its glorious generality, because I’m amused by the continued practice of a quality afterwards that I never get tired of being part of; forgiveness.

   “What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger” said Fredrick Nietzsche.  In affairs of the heart, that can be doubly applied.  Oh, and isn’t it a really great opportunity to learn to laugh at our imperfections? It’s as if they were always there.  Funny that.