Measure twice, cut once.

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Last week, I attended a business meeting in another town. I've already covered the pertinent details of that last week. What I briefly touched on was the restraint I displayed.

2 ears. 1 mouth. Use 'em in that proportion.

I could have opened up and ripped the speaker to tiny pieces. There was a time when I'da done that. But this time I didn't. I kept my comments brief, offered only a better way to do what the speaker was trying to get done. I let it go at that. (Update: The speaker Melvin Everson has found a member of the Georgia Legislature to introduce a bill next year to do as I suggested.)

What I tell you now is going to come as a serious surprise to people who think they know me. Only a very few won't be surprised.

Even when I do launch myself full throttle and damn the torpedos (speaking, writing is even moreso) I measure what I say. Really.

I am thinking about what I'm gonna say before I say it. I consider my words. I choose them. I deliberate before engaging my mouth.

Been there. Done that.

As I said, a very very few people won't be surprised to read this. They know me well enough to know that I do edit my speech. I avoid saying some things. Some might call this self-censorship. I prefer the term editing.

I edit what I intend to say before I say it.

I even hold back in this forum. Truth. I do not post everything I want to here.


"So do you have a place where you DO post it?"


If I want you to know about the things I don't say here, I'll tell you.


I'm not saying I always manage to do this. I still blurt stuff out without thinking, but these instances become more and more rare as I get older.


In case you are wondering, no, I am no better than you at planning a conversation with someone else. You do the same thing. You are also just as surprised and pleased as me when the talk DOES go exactly as predicted.

Not yet boy. Just hold on...

Some folks are now wondering what I hold back. Others are being thankful that I do hold back. Some are even wishing I'd never hold back.

I am letting you have it today, unedited.

Lemme address those who wonder. I hold stuff back because in my experience, some people are not interested in knowing what I see as the truth.

Correction. They can't handle it.

Addenda: They aren't smart enough to handle it.

Addenda: They aren't observant enough to handle it.

"That's a ferkin' arrogant statement, Baker."

No more arrogant than yours.

Nuf said, eh?

"What gives you the right to decide if I'm smart enough to handle what you want so say?"

Me.

"You #%^(*  &*^&%$  &*)!"

Have I ever claimed otherwise?

While my predictive conversation immediately above is not what everyone would say, the majority would think it. And that, to me, merely proves my point that such people are not smart enough to handle the unadulterated and undiluted stream of consciousness that James Joyce might applaud.

If you didn't understand the above, then you also prove my point.

If you feel that I am putting someone, anyone, down by these statements then you also prove my point to me.

Be no evil?

I am not denigrating anyone. I'm merely putting forth a founded reason for my actions.

Which then brings me to the point inasmuch as I ever have one. There are a very few people around whom I can say anything I wish. They immediately understand what I say, what I mean, inferences and innuendos and do not require elaboration or explanation. They get it. A hermeneuticist would love to be the fly on the wall when I get together with one of these people.

Saturday was one of those days. I got to spend hours in the presence of a person with whom I could say absolutely anything which came to mind and give no though to how it might be received, because it would be received exactly as I intended it. I said it too.

Do you feel luck? Do you? G'head. Make my day.

It was good. The fact we packed a cooler with fish was a bonus.

"That don't mean the person is smart. It just means he thinks like you do. Which is scary enough in itself."

I will not gainsay you.

I only add that people whose mental trains run parallel tracks to mine are of above average intellect.

You don't have to like that. You don't have to agree with it. You don't even have to believe it.

As for me, I'm going back to self-editing the stuff I say and the stuff I right here.