Last night, our team came in a very respectable second in the trivia game we planned at the local pub. I wish I could contribute more to the answers, but I’m afraid my knowledge, though trivial, does not work well with pairing performing groups with the songs they sing or comic characters with the super powers they possess. The source of my ignorance of some subjects is obvious: that fact that I have no kids, for example, helps explain why I know virtually nothing about comics or that, given the year of my birth, I have limited knowledge of rap music. Other subjects, not so much; although I blame my dim recollections of important events in American history on poorly-written text books in my younger years. Or something like that.
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I am in a strange place this morning. My head wanders a path between happiness and fear or something like it. During a very brief dream (or dream-like waking moment) from night before last (or morning before last), I “woke up” to a woman next to me in bed, both her arms wrapped around one of my arms. She said “Can our next house have a pool?” And that was the end of it. Nothing before, nothing after. Whether that’s happy or strange is open to interpretation. I don’t know. But it could be fear, too. But, as I am so often reminded, “It is what it is.” Worry is pointless. Assuming one has no ability to change things. Some days, I feel like I’m having the same damn conversation with myself that I had yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Ground Hog Day wired into my real psyche.
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Hundreds of unfinished draft posts await my judgement; salvation or destruction. If I opt to save them, I rarely opt to save them with the intent of using them as a stand-alone post. Instead I generally like something about them and think that something might work well to support points I want to make in a different post. That having been said, I’ve fished out some of my drafts. Rather than stitch together an incoherent post from those torn threads, I’m just dropping in pieces of them to save me from having to write much. I’m not really in the mood to say what’s really on my mind this morning; mostly because I can’t quite decide exactly what’s there.
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When I think an opportunity is about to pass me by, due to my lack of the gumption and courage to seize it, I sometimes act in irrational haste in the hope I am not too late. But, maybe it’s not really the wonderful opportunity it seems to be. Or perhaps it’s just one of several opportunities that might come my way; and they might be progressively better. But, as the aphorism goes, “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” so I might go for it to protect myself against finding two empty hands at the end of my arms. I’m not quite sure how to correct for that fear of missing an opportunity. The older I get, the more I think it’s just an unfortunate character trait that correlates with impatience, fear, and reticence to invest time in exploring opportunities when ample time is available.
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Dishonesty is not limited to overt lies presented as truths. Dishonesty can comprise careful omissions—or oversights so blatant it is almost impossible to believe they were mere lapses. No matter the springboard from which dishonesty leaps, though, it quickly can derail an enterprise, a marriage, a business, a friendship, a corporation, or a love affair. Dishonesty can emerge from discomfort just as easily as it can emerge from malice. But even if it derives simply from being ill-at-ease, it offers evidence of a willingness to be deceitful. And that can be a hard—or even impossible—obstacle to overcome. Complete honesty is hard to achieve, but it is easier than recovering from dishonesty.
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What algorithm might answer how much immediate aid versus long-term training/education is necessary to eliminate poverty? It’s not a flippant question. I wonder whether sufficient social science research has been done to serve as the basis for such an algorithm? While humans and human behaviors are not readily replicable in the “laboratory,” I would think we have enough data to enable us to calculate, at least roughly, what combination of aid and encouragement would be required to turn a life around.
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I am nervous. Nervous that wanting something too much can actually have the opposite results. I should be aware of this possibility. I think I’ve written about desire being so big and unchecked that it can smother everyone and everything in its path, driving them to seek open air and spaces where they can breathe. On the other hand, one’s survival might be inextricably linked to stoking that suffocating desire.
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I hear the washer winding down its efforts. My underwear should be sparkling clean now and ready for the dryer. I’m not sure whether I want to wash sheets today or wait until tomorrow or Sunday. What an enormous, life-altering decision. Why does it even require a moment’s thought? Just do something, John.
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My landline’s message light is on, but when I try to retrieve messages, I get a message that I have none. This is odd. I guess anyone who doesn’t get a return call from me will call back.
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Enough mumbles. I’ll go through laundry in the dryer and make an effort to attack the day.
