In seach of...

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Talk about a oxymoronic paradox and other difficult to pronounce words.

This morning I get in and run my usual feeds. Crost them came this item from a lawyer I actually like and respect:

Yer unhumble scribe is trying, CB, I'm trying

"I wish that just one morning I would wake up to see that someone had posted something that convinced me that they could research the facts instead of repeating someone else's prejudices. What happened to original thoughts????" Cheryle Bryan


Gotta admit. I am quite guilty of just repeating a prejudice offered by someone else or repeating my own.


I throw myself on the mercy of the court. Which reminds of something a member of the judicial community once told me as I sat in his chambers.


"You try to make people think."


Well, if I am not vindicated, I can plead extenuating circumstances to the charge so leveled by CB.


The question then becomes, do these musing instill in you, the reader, a desire to cogitate? Or are you steadfastly chained to the wall watching shadows dance through the flames?

For those on whom literary allusions are lost.

Even now I can't come up with an original thought. Makes me wanna quote from Ecclesiastes.


In my defense, lemme slide you back to troglodyte-dom and the above subterranean enforced dwelling.


Which would you prefer:


A person to come along an tell you flat out something you've never considered


OR


Someone come along and ask you questions that make you look at what you know in a different way.

The double fist justice of intellectual reasoning.

As for me? Both options have an equal opportunity to back me into a solipsist corner of dangerous irrationality. I have been known to object strenuously when someone challenges me. But this happens less and less as I get older.

DeathTongue!

I am now reminded of something an erstwhile editor of mine said. "I'd rather lose an argument than win, because if I lose, I have learned something I needed to know." Or something like that. I can tell you I have followed that maxim unfailingly since I heard him say it. I can also tell a lie.

So what's it gonna be? Will you follow the crowd? Will you march to the beat of a different drum? Or will you, as I once encouraged a freshly minted high school graduate, learn to play the tuba?

Whatever you decide, the dancing shadows of prejudice will be there if the world outside gets too scary.

Don't worry. You'll have plenty of company.