#uncoffeed...

I was recently asked to follow instructions with no explanation and I did it.  If  you know me in real life, you are probably amazed. I heeded because I trust the person who made the request (which wasn't really a request.) There were times in my life when I would have gone straight to do the thing I was explicitly asked to not do. I'm feeling pretty adulty, if confused. The Wielder of Instructions has a history with me that's earned my trust - a series of honorable decisions made, not deference to a title nor membership in any particular club. You need to let people know where you stand, and that can make you a potential target. Sort of a double-edged sword, isn't it?  Nobody wants to be cut. People sometimes use templates to define their ethics and values:  clubs and churches are the easy ones to identify.  We like the idea of knowing what to expect - it's easy, maybe even a ready-made personality. When we want to parse the template, we're accus...

I have That One Friend. The one nobody understands why you're friends with and sometimes you don't either.  I lie - I collect these people. If you're even reading this blog you are probably one of them (hi there.)  If I could get all of us into one party at the same time, the National Guard should be deployed to protect society from us and vice versa.  This That One Friend goes rounds with me on the topic of Religion vs. Science , my favorite thing.  It seems to be a tangent of the "You seem like a reasonable person, Y THO..." conversation, which often precedes people shaking my hand and walking away forever.  But thanks to the question resurfacing, I'm coming closer to finding words to explain my viewpoint (which hasn't wavered) and also why that one has been collected. Almost all arguments are matters of semantics.  Our current human vocabulary is insufficient to describe what our senses have identified..."sense" is one ...