Removing All Doubts

No. 7 of 31 -- Thermometer series

Everyone's heard of the wise man and the fool. The wise man is smart enough to keep his mouth shut. But the fool opens his and removes all doubt. If you have to think about that a bit, I get it. I've thought about it many times and I'm still not real sure. No one really likes the supposed wise guy because of jealousy. And no one likes the fool because he is a fool. So basically we don't like anyone. And the lesson has to be -- wise or fool -- keep your mouth shut and skate by. At least be that wise.

Do I have a degree of foolishness? Yes, more than my share. Except for wise survival skills and a complete fear of tomorrow, it looks like the joy of life is foolishness. No one ever thinks I'm a Brainiac. Never have been. If you’ve read this blog more than a day you know that. But am I a complete fool, a total moron, the mayor of Stupidville, the dunce of Dimsville? I don’t think so, but it’s a quandary, because if you’re that stupid you’re too stupid to know. So it's possible.

I actually don’t think we should ever get tied up in knots in these kinds of blind alleys, with the conclusion that we’re logically or illogically bound. I have been called the stupidest man on earth many times by well-meaning critics. But that’s just the way people talk. They’ve never met every man on earth, let alone tested everyone with clinical controls. Think of the effort, the call for papers they'd need, the groups and seminars, etc. So when you hear things like that — "You're the stupidest man on earth" — factor in some exaggeration. But if they say you're "literally" the stupidest man on earth, call the Guinness Book people and get it verified.

I was judged big-time by teachers a few times, and of course the guidance counselor, and didn't know how to respond. That’s one of the things I hated about school, that I didn’t have the vocabulary or analytical skills to reduce the teacher to a blubbering piece of jelly writhing and shimmy-shaking on the floor. Which would’ve been great. Then I'd be taking home a note to my mother that read, “Dear Mrs. Kundalini, Dippy reduced me personally and to the molecular level to a pile of dust during class with his many keen insights into my stupidity and the whole folly that the work of being a so-called teacher is when everyone knows I passed the training by the skin of my teeth and haven’t been able to improve myself with 25 years of experience; in fact, I’m getting worse.” That would've been sweet.

I didn't do any of that, because even then I had a reverent fear of tomorrow. But you have to agree that that teacher would've learned her lesson. My surgical dismemberment of her would've removed all doubts where she stood. And from that point on, whenever I had a criticism, people would've taken it seriously, or they too would've lost life and limb, and that instead of being expelled I would've been promoted immediately to the next class simply so I’d be someone else’s problem.

Do you, dear reader, want to avoid being reduced to dust and all the rest? Please send my thermometers sky high with your kind and loving attention. Did I tell you I lost my parents a few years ago? Have a heart. Several dogs have died too. Fish, guinea pigs. Show mercy. I don’t post everyday, sometimes I skip most of a month. Why? Because I don’t have anything to say? Sometimes yes, sometimes I’m afraid it will be such a word of power that no one can gaze upon it and live!

"Removing all doubts" today means I'm advancing boldly with the thermometer drive. Fearless, not looking back. Because there are so many hungry minds and eyes out there, all craving, hungering, and desiring fervently the full story -- they show it by filling and exploding my thermometers -- and that gives me the confidence I need to satisfy their hunger, minds, and eyes.