I Didn't, And Sometime I Still Don't

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How I came across the story of Mother Shipton is unremembered by me. I think my first encounter with her as a real person was a Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Shipton

Her past is sketchy, but her existence in one way or the other appears to be recorded. Her prophecies are hard to verify as being her original stuff. She became a well-known mythical careactor after the Dark Ages. Even if she wasn't the author of a poem republished in the Wikipedia article, the fact that the poem was published in the 1600s makes it a remarkable document anyway. It predicts the eventuation of the modern technology with an accuracy that astounded me.

If you want to read up on Mother Shipton and discover as much as you can, it won't take long. Not much factual information seems available. To me this points once more to my theory about the inner workings of charisma. It's a simple theory whose entirety resolves to: Tell the stories, and pass the plate.

I went to the breakfast diner that serves a blue-plate special buffet starting at eleven o'clock in the morning. I deliberately went to eat the buffet offering because they have fried fish on Friday. Only about 2-3% of the population around here are Catholic, but the restaurants have taken up the custom of having fish on Friday anyway. This works for me.

Upon my arrival there, when I walked in, my brother was already there and waved me over the booth he occupied along with a man I didn't recognize. My brother introduced me to Danny and we exchanged greetings, and they continued the conversation that preceded me sitting down with them.

They were talking about a comedian named Jerry Clower who was popular for his folksy stories that made people laugh. Danny had a personal encounter with Clower once and was fascinated by the fact that Clower was not only a comedian, but a Baptist minister.

Jerry Clower's actual day job, according to Danny, was that of a successful fertilizer salesmen who got to know a lot of farmers and rural people. He first told his funny stories to his customers who owned the fertilizer stores, and their customers, who eventually convinced him to become a standup comedian. To my brother's horror I picked up on Clower being a Baptist preacher to include myself in their conversation.

My brother had no way of knowing whether I was gonna insult this guy and his obvious fundamentalist religious views. We both knew through personal experience that nothing would please me more than to argue religion. He couldn't possibly know I had chosen that topic to work a new, more pleasant mojo that was unlikely to embarrass him if I could pull it off.

I based my remarks on my theory on rhetoric and oral persuasion. I.E., the art of oratory. Talking is a uniquely human attribute. Using speech to induce a state of conversion is the oldest game in town. Some people are born with a gift for gab, but finding a viable path to use it to reach one's own end point is probably a matter of luck more than deliberate skill.

In my opinion, all a rhetorician can do is tell the stories, and pass the plate. Maybe the topic or subject chosen to get their story across will bring the intended results. Maybe they won't. At times, there appears to be many variables that can determine the eventual outcome of such an effort.

When I explained that rhetoric is not constrained to preaching, but also to politics and salesmanship of all kinds, so that nobody got angry or felt picked on. My brother was visibly relieved that I hadn't introduced discomfort as I might have in the past. I liked the result because I'm beginning to see the ease of broadening my appeal by non-specificity.

In the past I have become persistently angry if I suddenly suspect that someone/anyone is trying to get over on me via the use of charisma. I had to get angry over being used or I couldn't stop it from happening as an act of will. To say that I've been unrightfully used by charismatics as a chump might be putting it lightly.

To indicate how big a fool I can be for these people, and how I ignorantly telegraph my gullibility to even amateurs, avoiding them and their influence over me became one of my life-long goals. Unfortunately, at first, for me to avoid them, I had to see them coming, and for the longest, tawdriest time, I didn't. So-me-ti-me, I still don't.

If I don't see people coming these days I accept that as my fault as soon as I possibly can. My reasoning is based on my belief that for me to see them coming, I have to be constantly aware that what I'm seeing over there is me. It's my idea of myself as them that I'm subjectively mulling over.

They (any other), except as a figment of my imagination, are possessed by a reality over which I have absolutely no control. "Rats! Foiled again!" This requires me to persistently, boldly deny that what I see over there is me.

In effect, to be true to myself I have to say, "You are not me!" to my idea of what I might be like, and yet realize simultaneously that the other is still whatever they are above and beyond my projection of myself, whatever that is, and their own reality is beyond my ability to openly observe.

In regard to statecraft, however, the other doesn't need to know I have not-me-d them as an object I can control via labeling or nay-me-ing (naming). It's in this spectrum the Gospel of Thomas advises "Be passerby.", and the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching it states, "The superior man lets many things pass without being duped."

This rhetorical arena doesn't appear to be all that obvious to many other people, but how would I know? The fact that it is apparent to me may be sheer delusion on my part, but for me, I am is needs a framework as a guideline for generating a useful and practical world view that avoids shame and/or blame, hopefully both. '-)

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