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Ignoring a topic or subject that has no personal appeal to me or doesn't offer a hint of increased well-being if I am indulges it indicates a terribly bright attitude to adopt in my opinion. The lines of poetry by Thomas Gray back in the Fifteenth Century, "...where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." states the situation perfectly.
The I Ching possibly states that situation in a more subtle way. In the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the Emperor's Yellow Book it states that "The Superior man lets many things pass without being duped."
In the Meyer/Patterson translation of The Gospel Of Thomas the same concept reduces to two words:
42 Jesus said, "Be passersby."
http://users.misericordia.edu//davies/thomas/Trans.htm
Of course, interpreting these writings to suit my fancy is what I am is all about. I filter for stuff that supports my own idea of things in order to prevail and remain free to withdraw into my own secret garden and contemplate with the glee of Tom (the baker's son), "Oh, what a good boy am I!"
Isn't this whole train of thought about excusing myself for my arrogant display of ignorance? My greatest gift and well-honed trait of dismissal? I find it very difficult to hide the fact that I've dissed my contemporary's most favorite topics of conversation as if it's boring to me, when it's not necessarily so.
When I first encountered the expression "dissed" I interpreted it to mean that someone had disrespected somebody else, and that deliberate insult threatened reprisal of various levels of punishment. As time wore away the edges of my initial conclusion, it came to be that "dissing" someone is more useful to me if I understand it as inadvertently displaying a dismissive attitude where it's considered rude.
As a matter of statecraft I find myself interested in deceiving people and hiding my dismissive attitude toward their unwashed mental meanderings to be used as an ulterior motive as if a dragon breathing fire or Thor throwing his hammers of lightning in a jealous rage. Same thing.
I absolutely adore shocking people with their own inattentiveness by dismissing their favorite sayings as inelegant at best. Usually revealed after the fact by a certain look on their face or their furious hand up side mah punkin' haid.
If I knew what I was doing I probably wouldn't just be mean to the other just for the hell of it. I get used by a docetic spirit as if I'm it's bitch. I'm innocent, I tell ya'. I'm just God's pawn. Not even an important piece like a bishop or a knight. I can only go forward one step at a time for the most part, and I'm expendable as all get out. I know what it's like to be a throwaway.
Over the last seventy years my own favorite ideas have been dissed by the most savage beasts around. My mentors have been absolutely sublime in their methodical discombobulation of my already frail ego. I can't possibly be that dumb. Why do people think they have to knock some sense into me like I was merely chopped liver? It didn't have to be that harsh. Why am I always the last to know?
Discovering what's wot by being the last to know is no great shakes. It's very embarrassing. Being the butt of some clique's inside joke is a terrible price to pay for just wanting to be around some interesting people for a change. I have always spent much of my time alone, even in a crowd, but when I do turn outward I just hate being treated as a dolt for not seeing their light all along. I hate paying to learn to play.
I hate that my old friend is trying to suffer his child's individuating pain for him. It's just not fair of him as a parent to do that, but things ain't been going right in a lotta different ways for this "good ol' boy" for a couple of decades now, and it's the best-laid plans of mice and men all over again.
He needs another line of work, but he is sixty years old and he trapped himself by hanging with an old industrial age technology after it's fall from grace. Moreover, he is complicit in the fact that he knew all along he was getting left behind, and he sulled up like a mule and got liver-lipped instead of being proactive.
There is nothing nobody can do. That's just his way as a rebellious conservative (not an oxymoron). He refuses to accept fate as kismet and move on. As usual, life will have to crush him in order for him to find another path with heart, that is, if it's not too late. The perversion of it is that he probably likes being crushed by life again and again.
How do I attract these perverts as friends? We're not at all alike in any way. I try to ignore them for their own sake and they keep coming back for more. Why me? I'm as innocent as a lamb. Maybe thats why some of them have been around for forty years. I'm the best model for perfecting themselves as human beings they have found yet. LOL
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
