Re: A Whale In A Hospital Bed Ponders Life...

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 22:37:38 GMT, Teachdaire <Messenger@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:46:32 -0700, Jon Croft
><bluewhale@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>Dear longtime freinds (sic)...

So nobody got that old inside joke, huh? I guess we're all getting
old...

>It is good to hear from you (`though I could have
>wished you writing from a better locale), my friend.

Like I said, do the math... I've been home for a few days now.
I swear, if I'd had to spend another day there I would have gone
LoONy. (I once heard hospitals described as places where the nurses
will wake you up to take your sleeping pill...)

>>Some of you know me of old, and others have no idea who I am.
>>I am not writing this to lecture anyone or convert them to my viewpoint,
>>but writing has always helped me sort things out for myself, so I'll
>>consider this post a little self-therapy.
>
>Your writing has helped sort out *MANY* people;
>I have often longed for your cogent passages here,
>for you know I become too angry to deal with the
>willfully ignorant. I have just referred to your posts
>>This post is about the choices we make in life, and what we value.
>>I am not dead yet, nor even close to dying, (Nonsense, he'll be stone
>>of Yesteryear in this forum the other day...

Thank you very much for that. Initially, I posted here as a lark,
because my thick skin made me well suited to it. Then I began getting
emails from lurkers during the glory days of s.c.s. and realized that
there were actually people out there hanging on our every word.

>And there it is. A good man - a man of Conscience (it's
>why he's an Honorary Highlander!) - comes to Reason
>and draws the inevitable conclusion one *must* come to:
>Liberals may be Silly, they may go Overboard; but unlike
>Conservatives they place a higher value on the quality of
>Human Existence than they do on the acquisition and
>maintenance of Wealth. And, unlike Conservatives, when
>Liberals make a mis-step it seldom, if ever, *hurts* people.

You mentioned that before and I was astonished at the truth of it, and
wondered why I had never thought of it myself. When a Liberal screws
up, we usually end up with a stained blue dress and a rash of sexually
disgusting cigar jokes. When a *Conservative* screws up, we have death
squads and piles of mouldering corpses. As a Great Man once said, "We
hold these Truths to be self-evident"...

>>I also began thinking about things that were said by people like the
>>Phantom Piper...The fact that I never met him, nor even know his
>>real identity somehow made our public and private conatcts take on
>>a deeper meaning in a way I can't explain. He almost seemed like
>>my subconscious pointing out things I really already knew.

>(It is my *job*, y'ken?)

And I'm afraid you will have great job security, my friend.

> And as for you, my friend, you
>(and people like you) have always seemed like Hope
>to me. A reason to carry on, when I am so bone weary
>of singing this song...
>
>Among all the Hamiltons and Johnstones of the world,
>when one meets a Prodigal such as yourself, it makes
>the effort seem so much easier, and so worthwhile.
>
>>From the bottom of my heart: *Thank You*.

And thank you. Not to get maudlin, but for a reason I can't explain, I
have probably spent more time pondering you over the years than anyone
outside my family. You are compassionate yet aggressive. You are
arrogant yet humble. You are *absolutely* convinced you are right in
all things yet I sense an open mind. Even though I am uneducated,
(never even finishing the 10th grade) I never felt mentally outmatched
by *anybody* except you. I'm friends with several college professors
and I have no fear of debating them on *any* subject, but I can't say
that about you.

I often wonder why I'm not more curious about your real identity.
I think it's because I don't "hero worship" you. While I am certainly
not your mental equal, I am also not a little puppy yapping at your
heels for attention. I see in you many qualities I wish I posessed,
but I also see the anguish those qualities can produce.

I'll give you an example... If you recall the one time you and I
*really* got into a fight, I mentioned an incident where I defended a
small boy who was constantly bullied by others. You thought I was
bragging and accused me of tooting my own horn, but I was trying to
point out how if I'd had more of your sense of moral outrage, I might
have saved many more kids from similar torture. I went to a very rough
high school full of gangs, yet in the times before gun proliferation I
was feared by all. Even at 14 years old I was well over 6 feet tall,
and playing football made my 240 pounds almost all muscle. I was
actually very shy and rarely smiled, but I soon learned that this was
taken as toughness by the bad guys and they steered well clear of me.
I knew smaller kids were being bullied, but because it had never
happened to me I couldn't appreciate the terror they felt. All that I
would have to do was say "Leave him alone or I'll kick your ass" and
they would have been free.

The point I am trying to make is that you have *always* struck me as
the type who would have used the power I had to make these weaker
kid's lives better, while I did not, except that one time. But where
would that have led? Would I have become the campus police officer,
always on the alert for the downtrodden? Would I have felt guilty if I
had missed something? Is it a virtue to be so morally aware (as you
are) that you end up taking on the burdens of everyone else?
I certainly never meant to be selfish, and I regret not helping more,
but I *was* just a kid. But at what point does helping others become
an unfair burden to you? *Is* there a line?

Is any of this making any sense?

>>All of these things changed my priorities. People mattered,
>>not money. Justice and equity were paramount. We *all*
>>have responsibilities to each other. And many other things...
>
>Yes. As the philosopher Jesus might have said:
>"From each, according to their Ability - to each,
>according to their Need."

You have said this to me at least 5 times, and I always argued with
you about it. The last time, you pointed out that you didn't mean it
in the strictest Marxist sense, and I can *finally* say that I
whole-heartedly agree with you.

I had more to say but my opiate receptors are getting rather irked at
me, and I think I need to take a break. (When I said I was opiate free
for 10 days and feeling fine I was stretching the truth a bit.)

Goodnight, my Hero...


Jon Croft
bluewhale
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: To the newbies pushing LDN...
    ... always started with the exact same words, "we come to share the truth ... Has your MS been helped by LDN? ... BigArtie is a friend of mine, and because all of us know the benefits ... treat Art the way that they are treating him. ...
    (alt.support.mult-sclerosis)
  • Re: To the newbies pushing LDN...
    ... always started with the exact same words, "we come to share the truth ... Has your MS been helped by LDN? ... BigArtie is a friend of mine, and because all of us know the benefits ... treat Art the way that they are treating him. ...
    (alt.support.mult-sclerosis)
  • Re: kids and their furniture?
    ... and the parents have an 'oh well they're kids' attitude. ... friend the collection. ... My son was very upset. ... toybox is how we would have taken care of them. ...
    (misc.kids)
  • Re: Is popularity an issue in grade school?
    ... interested in promoting or interfering in the kids socialization. ... DD came out of school very irritable and snapping at her ... paired up with one friend, then that friend decided to go and be with ... Should kids be taught about the importance of friendships and getting ...
    (misc.kids)
  • Re: Is popularity an issue in grade school?
    ... DD came out of school very irritable and snapping at her ... paired up with one friend, then that friend decided to go and be with ... Should kids be taught about the importance of friendships and getting ... sexual favours in the hope of becoming popular. ...
    (misc.kids)
Loading