JUDGE NOT LEST YOU BE JUDGED [MATT. 7; 1ss]

I have to begin this by saying that all my life I have been told to make choices.  I have been told to learn how to make good choices.  I was going to say "judicious" choices, but that would get me ahead of myself.  One of my first pieces of advice came from my mother.  I had been in school for a very short time.  I was not yet seven years old.  It was the first time that she advised me, "When you choose friends, always choose someone better that you."  Now isn't that a license to judge people?  I think it is.  In my life I have gone from there to the bottom line to not suffer fools lightly.  To do that, you have to judge.  It is impossible to get through life without judging. In fact, it is impossible to get through life without being judged.  At least that's what it feels like.  That is the rub.  We keep being scolded into not judging people on the one hand, and then we get scolded for bringing a negative judgement down upon ourselves for some silly reason.  
Through the years, here's what I have come to learn.  If you evaluate the factual output of another person's human behavior, in my book that is acceptable, nay, necessary judging.  [Read the Bible reference well and you'll see what I mean..."good measure, packed down...] It is a fact that there are, in fact, inept, incompetent and unscrupulous people on this planet.  Most of us have no problem with these individuals as long as they stay within the boundaries of what skills they do possess and do not hinder our efforts toward perfection.  Throughout my life, I have never had a problem telling people that they had to move on to another line of work, or another environment where they could get better results from their life activity.  It is important that everyone do what falls within the limits of the skill set that has been given, received and developed.  That's it.  
That goes for me too, by the way.  I have been told a few times in my life that I had to move on because I was a fish in a bird's nest.  Every time it happened, I knew that the person telling me the truth was in fact, hitting the truth nail on the head.  In fact, I am still on very good terms with them all.  For one thing, they are happy that I am no longer a thorn in their side, so we can still be friends.  The last time I was told the truth about my performance, I agreed with the man and even gave him some tips on how to deal with the fallout from my poor performance.
I am convinced, and ever will be, that there is no better predictor of future behavior that the behavior of the past.  Like they say in politics,
"The past is prologue."  There is nothing morally wrong with this type of evaluation.  We run into trouble when we overstep our bounds and start to impute motives for behavior, rather than to evaluate the factual output as detached from the motive (intent).  So, my life effort is to go on judging, evaluating, choosing what and how to do things, for myself first.  The person who is honest with self is never surprised at the judgement/evaluation of others who comment about the factual output of behavior.  Then when the man tells you that you have to move on because you are more of a liability than an asset, you should not be surprised.  You should have moved on by using your own initiative before being told.
I could go on and on about this, but the essential part of my thought has been placed on the table.  If you want to hear the rest, you have to promise not to cry at my funeral.

DEFINE AN HONEST ANSWER

There are a lot of definitions of "Honest Answer."  At least two of them come from the Bible.  The most succinct one is "Make your <yes>, yes and your <no>, no." [Matthew, 5,37 and James 5,12].  Straightforward.  No BS.  Saves every single bush in the vicinity from being beaten to death.
Somewhat earlier than Matthew and James, a wise person wrote in the Book of Proverbs this definition:
'An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips." [Proverbs 24, 26]  Now that one I like.  I like it because it is rooted in the heart and transmits the truth of the heart to the interrogator.  It is not a reality that has to be confected in the brain before being thrown on to the table in a take it or leave it attitude. It is made of pure, unalloyed ME wrapped around the truth being sought by the person who is seeking it from the responder.  It goes beyond historical fact and even goes beyond the amount of time that two people have known one another.  It is always a sign of assurance and of mutual trust.  It does have varying levels of significance, of course.  The level of trust invested in asking directions to the nearest drug store is not the same as that involved in seeking career advice.  Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that an honest answer does convey a level of intimacy that an evasive response does not.  An honest answer is a sign that the speaker is placing a deep level of comfort in the receiver of the statement.  It is a comfort that presumes a level of trust and intimacy that may or may not continue after the event, but existed before the rupture.  Presuming that the relationship continues, it can more than likely be also presumed that it will grow.  Honesty will become a mutual element of the relationship and the seed of love will flourish and more than likely the flower will never wilt.  We all have examples of this reality in our lives.  The examples do not break evenly at 50/50, for sure.  That's why they are so precious.  That's OK.  The examples of complete disaffection don't break at 50/50 neither.  That's why they are not the end of the world.  The good ones and the bad ones are not what drive me crazy.  It's the spectrum between the 25% here......and......the 25% here that I can't stand.  Don't you feel the same way?  Don't we all agree that a kiss on the lips (or the refusal of one)  is worth a day full of kissing your cousins?  [All due respect to my cousins!]  Should I really plan on going to Tahoe?  Heee.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, young and old and everyone in between, that's my $0.02 for today...and if you are not satisfied, I will refund you the amount between here..and..here.
Now you know why politicians never tell the truth.

HAVE YOU EVER FAILED? BE HONEST

Now you know that this is going to be deep stuff.  I saw the cartoon and couldn't help but listen to my brain whirling around looking for a wise-crack about "feel" versus "sure" and "failure."  My brain didn't deliver one to my satisfaction, so you have to be satisfied with what I got.  Actually, I got a lesson in personal failure the other day.  It is not a very good feeling, but it is an honest one.  It reminded me of some of the other times when I have come to the point of realizing that I had reached the limit of my talent in one field or another.  One of the things I was not very good at, and in fact, lousy at, was hand to hand combat...you know, fist fighting.  It took me a while before I realized that many of the people whom I strongly disliked could lay me out in lavender before I got the second jab going.  Yep, I took some pretty good shellackings.  The other area of failure for me is mathematics.  I can't fault myself for not trying, but I suppose if I reflect on it long enough and deep enough, I might wonder about the quality of the effort.  "Suppose" all I want, that's all I'm going to do.  I took my last and best shot at math when I was 38 and I got a "C".   That night I went out and bought an ounce of the best "Sensimilla", joined my friends and came to the conclusion that this was the crowning glory of my mathematics career.  I've been a failure at math all my life.  You can tell that I have accepted it because I have learned to laugh at it.  It was harder for me to accept that I was not as good as I thought in baseball.  I accepted it at about 19 years of age, but I still can replay, pitch by pitch, play by play, some of the games in which I proved to the world and to myself that I had better find something else to do with my life.  It was not so hard to realize that I would never amount to much in sports that require indirect contact with the ball, the bird or the puck.  If I have to use a paddle, a racquet or a stick, I am a failure.  I am also a failure at basketball and volleyball. Period.  
Cards?  Cards, you ask?  I am a good pinochle player, a slick cribbage guy, a so-so bridge partner and a terrible black-jack table pretender.  
Puzzles?  Good interlocking picture puzzle assembler, slightly better than average crossword puzzle doodler (Thursday's New York Times level).
There is one area of life in which I can say without equivocation that I am BAD at:  Accounting.  Even the simplest, easiest repetitive task is going to turn to dust in my hands.  I know that is is because I am so distracted when it comes to details.  Especially that kind of detail.  Maybe even any detail.  I wonder how many of this blog's posts are 100% error free.  More than likely, none.  Why?  It is beyond me.  I reread them all at least three times before pressing the button to publish and at least once after publishing.  About 9 of 10 times I have to recall it and make a least one correction before announcing it to the community.  There are some things that I do well, but, as you can easily see, there are also some that I don't do well at all.
The one thing that I do well, is to be able to be honest with myself and with others.  I came to know that self directed honesty is the road to happiness here on earth quite a while ago.  I have come to know who I am and that tells me what I can or cannot do.  That doesn't mean that I don't participate in some activities that are outside my area of weakness, but I don't take myself seriously while doing them.  That's OK in games.  It's not OK in activities that should be serious.  It's difficult for me to be serious when I am in a weakness zone.  This attitude becomes problematic when serious life situations demand breaking out of the comfort zone and forcing my "square peg" into a less than square hole.  I suppose we all have to do this sometimes, but we all hate to be something that is not "me."  
I am happy to tell you that since I have had the joy of failing at something and living with the consequences for about a week now, it becomes more and more satisfying to write to you like I do.  I also have other things that I now have time to do that I excel at.   I wonder where it is all going to lead me.  Isn't that a question that we all have?  May the answers all bring peace, joy and happiness.

I LOVE YOU, A BUSHEL AND A PECK

Really?  A bushel and a peck?  So what? How many of you remember whether a peck is more than a bushel or vice-versa?  How many of you remember that when we were in school back many years ago we had to memorize all of this stuff because it is very important?  I had to look it up because I read the information on the gas pump as I was waiting for my tank to fill.  It said that the pump is calibrated to deliver gasoline in the standard gallon of 231 cubic inches.  Really, NOW!?  No stercus?  I'm so happy to know that.  At that moment I wanted to shoved it down sister Imelda of the Child Jesus' throat.  I would bet my place in purgatory that even SHE didn't know that.   But then my mind wandered and I realized that I could not remember how many pecks are in a bushel.  Can you?
I found all the old information online and I was stupefied to see how much of it I had left behind in the dark, musty corners of my mind.  Then, I left Google and I really started to test myself.  So I came up with some stuff that I actually remembered.
For instance:  Furlong = 220 yards or 1/8 of a mile.
I know that because I am somewhat of a horse racing lover.  I love horse racing because horses don't have a union and they don't have agents.  When they break a leg, as the saying goes, they also get the ground broken for them.  I also remembered a fathom, used for measuring depth = 6 feet.  I also remembered that a land mile is shorter than a nautical mile, but because I could care less,  I know that a land mile is 5,280 feet and a nautical mile is all wet.  I do know that a barrel of beer is 31 gallons or 124 quarts.  Just enough for about four Dions and 2 Thibaults.  A barrel of crude oil is 42 gallons and I know that a drum of pig slop is 55 gallons and sloshing all over the streets as the truck goes down the road.  I know that there are four pints to the quart, four quarts to the gallon and that a gallon of water weighs something like 8.3 pounds.  I know that a ream of paper is 500 sheets.  Finally I remembered that what used to be a 12 foot long 2" x 4" piece of lumber is now 1.5" x 3.5" by about 11.75'.  That's because Abraham Lincoln is no longer president so there is no one around to enforce the "Honesty is the best policy" rule.
This has been a round-about way to get to the question that I and many others have asked themselves over the years, "Why do I have to learn this?"  I remember that we spent at least a week or more being taught how to calculate "board feet."  Why?  When is the last time you had to calculate board feet?  You know, I had an analogous experience before the gas pump episode, so I guess that's why I'm back to 1944.  The analogous experience was a question on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, or some such rag, that read like this, "Why should we learn cursive?"  [You know, handwriting?  The Palmer method?  Remember?]  Think of that a second or two.  True enough.  If you're not an artist, and you're not a professional archivist who has to know how to read the stuff, who really cares?  Just because in 1950 it was considered to be less than respectful to send a letter to someone in type face, you might want to think that even type face letters are pretty rare these days.  Go one farther.  I know that I am going to get electronic birthday cards soon.  All I can say is, Bring 'em on, I won't be offended.  And just to be old fashioned about it, my checking account number is 73xx00yyyy.  That may be funny now, but by Christmas I'll have my PayPal operating.
The times they are a changin'.  We still have pecks and bushels, quarts and gallons, acres and arpents, fathoms and leagues as well as barrels and kegs.  We also have the wisdom to know where to look for their detailed properties if we need to have them for some esoteric exercise in Eastern Spirituality.

I DO LOVE YA, BABY, I DO

YOUR WAY WITH WORDS -- AMANUENSIS? -- AWAY WITH YOUR WORDS

Quote: "I  hate to ask, but I am wondering if you can supply X's needs as stated in the email below.  Let me know if you can spare some of your precious time to write something short and sweet for "Y."  You have a way with words which I admire highly.  I am sending this request to you because frankly I am up to my neck with all my other obligations.  Or, let me know how I should respond." 

I will spare you the reading of the response I gave to this well-meaning soul.  This was a classic situation in which a high placed person was asked to write a short encomium about a person under his authority.  It was to grace the inside front page of a rather formal four page program outlining the activities of an important soirée to be held in honor of the above indicated person.  It turned out that the high level person in authority begged off by saying that he had too many other important things on his plate.  He suggested that someone write the fluff, put it in front of him to sign and so it would be done.  The petitioner then turned to the soul who composed the quote above.  Above quotee then turned to me.  I made the politically unacceptable mistake of saying, "NO."  It was also a mistake in tactics.  I know another person to whom I could have turned and passed the buck further down the line.  I mean, Hey, this guy I know, has a great way with words too.  Not only that, he is still within six degrees of separation from the honoree.  I'm kicking myself for not keeping the chain going.  I'm wondering if the story could ever have wound up on You Tube and gotten several million hits before anyone dared to say "NO."  

It's just a thought.