Category: Wisdom Tidbits

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It’s Not That Hard Folks | Golden Rule

I came across this cartoon this morning.

Which reminded me of a story I had read about Rabbi Hillel…

The Talmud is the second most important book of the Jewish faith. As described at the website Sefaria.org:

“The Talmud is the textual record of generations of rabbinic debate about law, philosophy, and biblical interpretation, compiled between the 3rd and 8th centuries and structured as commentary on the Mishnah with stories interwoven. The Talmud exists in two versions: the more commonly studied Babylonian Talmud was compiled in present-day Iraq, while the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in Israel.”

There is a story attributed to two second century rabbinic scholars of this book , Hillel and Shammai. As recounted at the website Forward:

“[They were]…contemporaries paired together by Jewish tradition as archetypical opposites: Hillel the tolerant and liberal ‘loose constructionist’ of the Law, Shammai the exacting and inflexible ‘strict constructionist.’

In one story about them, a gentile comes to both and asks, with the obvious intention of provoking them, to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai is indeed provoked and gives the man an angry whack with a measuring rod. Hillel replies, ‘That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.’“

How hard can this be people? Apparently too damn hard.


To see the Golden Rule as expressed by many other religions follow this link: The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions

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3 key principles for great conversation | A Short Video

Emily Chamlee-Wright discusses the principles of great conversations: humility, critical thinking, and sympathetic listening.

Three great rules for great conversations, and not easy to follow.

    1.  Humility: Get some techies or geeks together talking shop/their field of geekdom, and sit back and watch one-ups-manship on steroids.  Most of us want to show others how smart we are.  I know I do.  Dropping that and listening with humility opens up the doors of discovery.
    2. Critical thinking:  While it is sometimes important to point out the illogical or simply wrong comments of another person, all too often it is a conversation stopper and an argument starter.  As I age I found myself less inclined to do so. In all likelihood I am not changing their opinion anyway. If they are wrong on a factual matter, why embarrass them.  However, it does make me think of the young lady in Ecuador with whom I have visited via Skype for years for Spanish conversational practice. At times I think she is playing Devil’s Advocate to keep the conversation going.  Other times I think it is just her personality. If I say the sky is blue.  She will say it depends on the time of day, weather conditions, etc.  No silly I mean right now.  She reminds of a certain Springdale resident in this regard.
    3. Sympathetic listening:  This is the key. Do this and the others follow.  It is something I strive for, but my own need to interject all too often gets in the way.

Practice, practice, practice… poco, poco llegamos a la meta.

Enough of my silly two cents, the video follows:

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Lemonade

“Si del cielo se caen limones, aprende a hacer limonada.”

Or in English, “If lemons fall from the sky, learn how to make lemonade.” Obviously very similar to the common proverbial phrase here in the United States, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, belaboring the point, an expression meant to promote optimism.

One of my iTalki Spanish tutors, Moisés, lives in El Salvador.  He is an interesting gentleman, and our conversations flow easily and cover a wide array of subjects.  He frequently speaks of his father Continue reading “Lemonade”

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It is official: I am old

By whatever methodology of measure you elect to utilize, I am not a young man.  I have not been so for a while now.  The other day I celebrated my 69th birthday by mowing and fertilizing the lawn.  Brothers being brothers, one of mine reminded me that as of my birthday this year I was beginning my 70th circuit around the sun. Thanks Mike, now pass me the foam encounter bat, you fellow old curmudgeon. My wife, for my birthday this year, bought me a coffee mug with my name on it.  I deduced that she was afraid that with my advancing decrepitude I might not remember who I was… let it alone my name.

However, the real kicker Continue reading “It is official: I am old”

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Imagine that Everyone Is Enlightened

So I finished The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay.  In its place I have placed in the “meditation room” a book by Richard Carlson, Ph.D. entitled Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff… and it’s all small stuff. The title of the essay I read this morning was Imagine that Everyone Is Enlightened Except You. It immediately made me think of my first rule of driving:  Everyone on the road is an idiot except me, AND I should not be too sure about myself.

The base premise of the essay is that every obnoxious driver, discourteous clerk, line cutter, etc is actually an enlightened person that is trying to teach you a necessary lesson. They are teaching you about patience, forbearance, acceptance, etc.

Part of me finds this an interesting concept of how to go through your day and deal with all the frustrations, big and little, that come our way.  It would certainly help to maintain your blood pressure in an acceptable range.  But it does remind me a bit of the old joke about the man who prayed for patience.  Boy, did the deity send him some lessons to learn patience.

But then part of me thinks, “Well, Grasshopper, maybe you’re the enlightened person trying to teach them a lesson when you flip them off or get in their face…”

But then you say, “Oh Grasshopper, cannot you see that is two sides of the same coin?”

Must be a lot of us out there needing to get us some learning!

And so it goes…

Keep well.

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Something, something, something…

I met Robin’s father, Theodore – Ted, but I did not know him.  When I started dating Robin in 2008 he had already been in a nursing home for many years due to Alzheimer’s.  It had been years since he had recognized anyone, even his wife.  I am not sure how long we had been dating before Robin took me by to visit her father, but a while.  Robin did not visit her father, Ted, much in this period as her mother was still alive and primary caregiver.   As alluded to elsewhere Robin’s relationship with her mother was “complicated”, and this put visiting her father in the same realm.

Ted’s grandfather had been the village blacksmith back in Mother Russia.  Continue reading “Something, something, something…”

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Audio Book Snobbery

  First a couple confessions… this is going to be a bit of a curmudgeonly rant. Secondly, my name is David, I am a former audio book snob.

What is an audio book snob? There are many folks out there that feel if the medium for accessing a book is not reading it is a bit of a cheat.  If you listen to a novel rather than read it, you have violated some unwritten rule of the universe.  I have a social acquaintance that knows I ingest a fair number of books annually.  In response to his conversational gambit if I start talking about a recently partaken book, he will ask me with a slight sneer in his voice did I read it or listened to it.  He discounts my experience with the book if I listened to it.

Not too soon after I met Robin the economic crisis of 2008 hit.  I was contracting at the financial company Edward Jones.  Their response to the crisis was to bid adieu to all their contract employees.  So suddenly I was out of work in the middle Continue reading “Audio Book Snobbery”

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The Appropriation Of Cultures

Flipping through Twitter this morning someone commented if everyone would paint the Confederate battle flag on mailboxes, Gospodin Trump and his henchmen would leave them alone.  This brought back to mind one my favorite short stories of all time,  The Appropriation Of Cultures by Percival Everett. I first heard it listening to a podcast of Selected Shorts. 

The base premise of the story is a black professor buys a pickup with a Confederate flag on it from a redneck.  For me it was one those stories that embeds itself strongly in whatever part of your brain or psyche that happens in.  I am including a YouTube link to the short story parsed from an episode of Select Shorts.  IMHO, it more than worth the 20 minutes of your time invested in it.  Somehow it seems so perfect for right now.

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