Bessie-isms:
*Middle age shows you where your life is truely headed, and is your last chance to steer a new course if where you’re going appalls you!
*A strong lout believs nothing can overcome his strength, but he can easily be suffocatedd by a mound of feathers.
Quotable:
A wise man will keep his suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
Marquess of Halifax
Incremental Improvement Of Your Life
In the nineteen fifties, Japan was noted for building lousy cars. Cheap, inferior, prone to breakdown and fail, they were the laughing stock of the world auto industry. Now, they build mostly the worlds best autos. How did this happen, you might wonder? Well, they didn’t do it in one model year, I can assure you of that! Instead, they met an American engineer named Howard Deeming, and his brillian idea for improving processes. Building things is all about process!
Howard’s idea was elegant and utterly simple. Don’t try to change everything at the same time; others had done this and failed miserably. He suggested they fix easy, simple and obvious things first. Like designing a window crank or hood latch that worked well. Each new model year they improved a few more things a bit. Fifty years later, they were building amazingly fine autos!
So why do I bring this up here? Because, when your life is a train wreck, you’ve got the same problem the Japanese had with their car building. Most people try to overhaul their horrid life in one massive stroke, and fail utterly. Worse, this convinces them that their life is hopeless, and they quit trying to make it better. Here’s a clue. Find a couple of better friends. Get some education, if you lack that. Then find a better job. Maybe you can improve your marriage, so it doesn’t suck, or just prune the other party and start over.
You have a better life by improving the one you’ve got now a dribble at a time. The important thing is to take small bites, so you can succeed and keep moving forward. Eventually, you’ll find things much improved. Incremental improvement for your life and soul; don’t leave home without it.
Jack
Bessie-isms:
*There is no company so delightful as someone expected, and none so annoying as the one that sneaks in while you aren’t paying good attention!
*Help your child to be confident; a slave with great confidence will find favor, a great man lacking it will be treated like a slave!
Quotable:
Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Social Media Says People Aren’t Very Bright
I hate to even get started on this subject, but a nasty exchange with someone on Facebook convinced me even more that humanity is in sharp decline. Now I don’t have high expectations for the educational attainment of our fellows these days in the first place; I am one of the dependable critics of our public school system, after all. People that aren’t taught much can’t be expected to be all that well informed.
What shocks me worse is the decline in comprehension of something like sarcasm. You make a sarcastic post about something that strikes you as dumb, stupid, dishonest, false or offensive, and you’ll be denounced as a racist, crackpot, loser or illegal alien in seconds! People can’t seem to grasp humor either and satire…dear God, that’s a one way ticked to Trollville!
I sure do miss the good old days, when people had enough education and fluency with the language to be able to be witty while beating the hide off a fool with just words. Now you’re instantly a hater or worse, all because the rest are morons! It keeps getting worse. The politicians all misquote and misinterpret things to make each other look like godless weasels. This is really dumb, because even if they told nothing but the truth, they’d look like slimeballs and gasbags. But no, they have to help destroy the language and the finer skills of oratory.
Social media is even worse. Not only can’t anyone understand satire and sarcasm, they can’t spell either. I once joked, (sarcastically), that we’d eventually sound like a bunch of chimps, but I now realize that was unkind. The chimps are using sign language, and actually do so correctly, unlike our youth. The monkeys will be wearing three piece suits, while our young are dragging their knuckles on the ground and grunting at each other. I was just too unkind to the chimps, apparently.
Jack
Bessie-isms:
*People have the wrong idea about confession. They think you are telling God what you did wrong or wicked. Jokes on you; He already knows. Your confession tells Him YOU know what you did wrong or ungodly!
*Live your life with a burning, intense fire, determined to leave nothing undone of your life plan. There is no penalty in God’s universe for doing more than the bare minimum, and musch to be gained by doing so!
Quotable:
We make our friends; we make our enemies, but God makes our next door neighbor.
G. K. Chesterton
Ask What A Person’s Dreams Are, To Understand Them
You can learn a lot about why people are as they are, or why they have the life they have, if you know what sort of dreams they have. I’m not talking about night dreams either, but rather the goals and visions they possess, that we usually call dreams. You’d probaly not be all that shocked to find that the person whose life is a complete train wreck has no dream! Oh, yes, lots and lots of time such is true.
Even more pathetic is the number who exist, clinging to failed dreams. Face it, at forty, and eighty pounds of flab, you aren’t playing pro sports; time to move on! Same for being a ballerina or an opera singer. Wanting to be Einstein when you’re a high school drop out is pretty futile too. But still, people cling. They stubbornly refuse to get with it and move past the old dreams.
Of course, this has wicked consequences. The worst is a simple one; not giving up the lost or failed dream makes it hard to honestly move on, and search for a real, doable dream! This isn’t rocket science! Yes, they make killer movies about people who hang on and keep working, but likely that’s not you. You’re more than likely on the road to ruin, because you won’t realistically evaluate your chances. I’m all for going the distance, but come on…few people are willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to accomplish that. Let it go, and find a new, worth while and doable dream. Your soul will thank you. It just will.
Jack
Bessie-isms:
* A fool’s wit is seldom improved by strong drink, but a genius doesn’t get smarter from it either.
*Choosing a gift for someone is a pin. No one wishes to give a gift that is plainly utilitarian, and thus often gives a gift that is utterly uselss instead.
Quotable:
Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man.
Ralph Waldo Emmerson
Why Are We Conserving The Idiots?
We go to a lot of effort and expense to keep people alive, who would otherwise exercise their free will, and remove themselves from the population. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but have you tried to drive lately? Tell me an idiot removal program wouldn’t improve life! Now people are free to be idiots, uneducated fools, people just bursting with wrong, stupid or useless information. Believing that aliens dictate our lives, that the world is really flat, that isn’t likely to get anyone hurt.
Ah, but there’s a lot of places where believing the wrong thing will be harmful or fatal. Say some kumquat head just “knows” they can fly like a bird. Bye bye idiot, when they jump off a tall building. Instead of allowing the herd to be thinned, we make people waste money putting fences on top of buildings, to “protect” the fools. Ditto the million warning stickers on ladders, to advise idiots not to put them on power lines. It’s insane!
Look, if an adult can’t be expected to not be a raving moron, why does society need to cling to them? Apparently idiots reproduce and raise more idiots, which is dragging society down. I’m not suggesting we have a death squad that goes looking for idiots to terminate, (although after driving on the highway, I’m not saying that’s a bad idea either), but how about we just let nature take its course, and let the people inclined to remove themselves do so. Give that some thought, the next time you drive, or watch the news.
Jack
Bessie-isms:
*You did not sign on to be a parent to be a “friend” to your child. You are the parent to teach, raise, guide and show them how to live decently. They must find their own friends. Don’t make them find a worthy parent also.
*Do you remember being held and read to as a child? If not, do not repeat this mistake with your own children. This is a fundamental memory that everyone should have.
Quotable:
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Francis Bacon
Battling Evil Is Indeed Your Business
In a world filled with evil, where large numbers of wicked fools are armed with all manner of weapons and means of death, destruction and oppression, there is NO place for pacifism! The unwillingness to fight evil, to destroy it makes you into an evil person, godless and foolish. Too many people have a half baked, pathetic idea that God wants you to offer no resistance to murders and jihadists, wants you to conduct a dialogue and try to understand them. Nonesense.
The parts of the Christian bible that hint at this foolishness are frankly wrong, tragecially so. God never once instructed anyone to overlook evil, to give the pervert, rapist, murderer, jihadist a pass. You were always commanded to know and battle evil. Why do you think you have the ability to discern good from evil, decency from perversion? The free choice to choose to oppose wickedness? You think you’re to sit on your butt and sing Kumbayah?
The entire ministry of Jesus was a call to resist the darkness, to battle against evil. Jesus was no “Christian”, he was a Jew, and a devoted one, who believed the writings and upheld Jewish law. That law was brutally unfriendly to evil doers and rapists, murders and wicked people of all sorts. God clearly despises evil. You were commanded to resist it! Are you, or are you trying to give it a hug? The world isn’t getting to be a friendlier place, in case you’ve not noticed. Barbarians are butchering in the name of a perverted religion. Will you fight this scourge, or sit helpless, until your head is lopped off? Maybe you should thing about that?
Jackl