THANKS, BUT SEE...


I received several comments after my most recent entry suggesting that I am hard on myself.  While I appreciate the sentiment behind those words, there are a couple of three or so things that is a part of my character that I think I should mention…


One of them is that ‘Ignorance of the Law is no excuse’.  By that I mean the mistakes that I have made because I did not possess the awareness or knowledge aforethought does not make things ‘all good’.  When I was in my teens, this was okay, because I did not have the needed life experience, but knowing what is what is best (and right) from what is easy (and usually wrong) is no real justification for certain errors.


Also what I believe my self-flagellation from many other folks doing the blog thing and venting about there troubles is that I acknowledge and consider my own complicity in my past failings.  Whether or not there were agitations, added complexities and undue outside influences in certain situations or no, in my eyes, still are a reflection on mistakes on my part.




Take the case of two of the biggest relationship matrixes that I have spoken of in my journal, the one with my family and the one with my ex-wife.  In both of them I do hold a small amount of ‘confustration’ over what took place within them BUT (and the reason it is such a big but!) is that other people have dealt with worse hands and ended up with big wins at the table of life.  Not only in comparison, it is also in my own conscious that I feel that I have misplayed my hand, and not been a victim of circumstance.  With that being the case…


THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GETTING A B+ AND AN A-


I have like teachers ever since Mrs. Stevenson and Mrs. Kent, my 1st and 2nd grade teachers.  I think they are amazing people for what they do and even the mediocre teachers have a greater positive impact on the world than that of a successful hedge fun manager, lobbyist or political flack.  But staying on course…


Not only do I have a love and real appreciation for teachers and the profession, several major players in my life were educators and there are certain insights that I gleaned from them, albeit late in my academic career, that is the boulder that I must push to the top of a rounded-off hill.  


One of my resources explained to me the difference between the two letter grades in this sections ID in their grading.  See, a (+) or (-) does not factor into the actual letter grade as much as it does on the psychology of the student.  They were more apt to give a (B+) to a struggling student who really worked their tail off to get their 88% than they were to give a straight (A) to a student who scored 91%.  That person, they said, was more likely to have a (-) affixed alongside their grade, because they more than likely were underachieving for whatever reason.  This assessment was made from observing them and from the work they produced.  Likewise, the latter student was likely to merely get a (B) when their score fell into that range, whether it was on the high end or not.  Again, that underachieving thing, and it may have added commentary that reflected that opinion.
I got a lot of (A-) in my schooling… not often, especially in high school, did I get a (B+).  Though I consider myself a effort kind of guy (M.T.X.E deserves a post of its own!), I did not necessarily work hard.  Stuff came easy to me and I was content to let it, not bothering to hone any of my academic talent to precision.  And now…


I took a quiz in my Info Systems class and though I really studied I still got two questions wrong that I knew the answers to.  Looking at my score, I reflected on the story I have related to you, fond friend and reader, and it contrasts with why I don’t give myself a break, even if I should.  Though fate has been fickle, it has been so only occasionally with me.  More often I feel like I have the opportunity  to walk in a dimension that lies between ‘here’ and ‘there’ called ‘the time of timelessness’, where all the road that lead between decisions and consequence exist.  And that is another reason that there are such hard feelings (but not so hard you can’t dunk them in milk and they go soft!) in regards to my peeps and my starter wife.


THOUGH IT WORKS BETTER IN SCIENCE, IN LIFE, YOU DON’T NEED TO VERIFY EVERYTHING


As intuitive as I can be about things, confirmation of what you think is more of a test of things like desire and will than anything else.  I believe that often we ‘know’ not only better but the consequence of making the decision that leads us into disarray and/or ruin and that is what regret is all about.  This is what makes the two issues from my past that I speak of the most stand out in my mind as a ‘binary singularity’.  They were early examples of a lesson that I have gone on to confirm repeatedly and I don’t think I need to prove them as a truth anymore.  I had intuition on what I should do, just as I had my intuition on revisiting old flames or whatever is a bad idea, there was the same kind of ‘knowing’ regarding other relationships...


…and maybe the underachieving from high school manifested in the choices I have made since.  And why I made them, well, that is going to have to come at another time BUT the same ‘bat station’!