Capturing Drifting Thoughts

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For me to claim that capturing drifting thoughts with words is not easy would be a deliberate lie. Choosing either hard or easy as a descriptor for what happens during my process occurs as an extraneous projection upon a situation that depends more on luck than practiced skills.

Yesterday I wrote about how the term "nemesis" came to mind after it didn't so readily appear when I conjured to use it to describe a facet of my relationship with people who act friendly toward me, but appear to have ulterior motives for becoming my friend. One of the interesting definitions of what a nemesis is points out that the named person is usually acting as an agent for an unseen third party. Moles.

The term nemesis 'came to me' after I stirred the pot a little more vigorously than I normally have to. Forgetting rarely used words is an old habit of mine that hardly has anything to do with the aging process. The aging process does appear to cause me to give up my pompous quest sooner, as of late.

Particularly for the so-called "fifty-cent" words I seem to reach for as a sport to tease the hapless purveyors of false hope with their own row to hoe. Hard-to-digest, arranged statements can cause enough snooze for the other to lose track of the ti-me it takes for me to get outta town. Elsewise, I have to convince Brer Wolf to toss me into the briar patch all over again.

I really have to want to find a very specific word, these days, for me to institute one of the more complex search patterns I've developed over the years. But, I had to get ponderous about nemesis? What other term could possibly describe the condition it does with such terse precision?

My use of it is, "Be warned, mofo, things are not as they seem with this person." If I find myself take to using that term to describe somebody I'm setting up a rule of conscience to help me remember to be cautious and to not let down my guard. A border skirmish can quickly elevate into all-out war.

With my real question being: Why would anybody let themselves be used as a nemesis toward another person for somebody else's benefit? I am is curious to figure out if the manipulated person who attempts to manipulate me even knew they were being used, and why? Why would I let myself be used as someone's nemesis?

One of the reasons I've let somebody use me for their own ends, back in the day, is that they paid me to represent them and their interests. They put an ad in the paper that said they were hiring salesmen. If I checked on the job I usually encountered an experienced salesman who was hired to sell me on selling their products to people who didn't need whatever it was.

Otherwise, why would the product need a nemesis to get over on the fool that don't know any better than to part with their money for something they don't need. I got a lousy attitude toward making a living this way, and not much respect for people who find it intriguing. Although I do seem repugnantly aware that such behavior is what makes the world go around.

Maybe many sinners have their own personal list of the ten most despicable sins for which they suffer the most. This strikes me as a somethingness I created for my own edification and not for the other. It's not at all clear to me why I chose (or had chosen for me) the abstract content of what some call their conscience.

This leads to an even deeper question of mine. Why would anybody in their right mind let their "conscience be their guide"? I never found that doing this was all that beneficial to me as an individual, and seemed like an attempt to get me to irrefutably accept being a herd animal with a fond fare-thee-well.

My doubt about their true motive for suggesting I unquestionably allow some personally irresponsible and unseen drumbeat to essentially control me in my subjective decision-making, led me to question what a "conscience" is, exactly, and it provoked a deep curiosity to my me to find out precisely what a "conscience" consist of?

It became the biggie version of my search for the term "nemesis". How I searched for what a "conscience" might be, that is. I'd like to pass it off as the way of nature and shine it on. And, it is one of the ways of nature, but in this case ignorance is not a blissful experience. In all good conscience, I find it impossible to shine it on (pun intended). '-)

Maybe that's why Thomas Grey wrote "... Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." This poem verse was one of the first instances where hyphenating words proved useful in discerning an interesting conversational insight into what Thomas Grey intended.

I hyphenated "ignorance" to make it ig-nor-ance. The state of ignoring something a human has to know is there in real time, in order to cop a dismissive attitude toward whatever it's labeled to be. Many people seem to be quite blissful about ignoring what they feel unthreatened by.

"Yeah, yeah... So, the sun also rises... I agree... it's a fact... big deal... eh?"

That's where Grey's other part of the line about wisdom (wise-dome)comes into play, in my opinion. It's also why just those two lines of his poem got elevated into universality and not the entire poem; "...where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

The second line took a while for me to grok it's meaning. Eventually I realized that "folly" is an archaic form of "foolish", and the advice Grey offers is weighty. To me it states that if other people are ignoring some state of affairs about which I'm not indifferent, that I might be better off to leave them be. "Let sleeping dogs lie."

Who am I to attempt to decide for others what they should treat as important about their own lives? Why would I possibly insist that others obey my highly questionable personal rules of conscience, when they have their own cleverly designed, self-generated hell to cope with that is beyond any input I slyly offer up?

It's such a waste of ti-me. My subjective rules for behaving has nothing to do with the other's self interest. So, what's not to like about me continuing to be a passerby without binding their self-inflicted wounds? Why gather with the others at the trough, when there is no water in the well?

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