Questioning Life and the "Massive Middle Finger"

"Don't think of it as picking your nose... think of it as flipping off your sinuses."

-- Maxine ( by John Wagner)

Do you agree with the statement "Life is one massive middle finger, only you don't see it every day"?

No, and I’d like to give the “massive middle finger” to the defeatist who said it. Life is all about choices. Bad choices result in bad outcomes. If life deals you lemons, find a way to sell the lemonade; change the outcome. This is a choice. Life isn’t that hard if you keep making the right choices. If you fail, this is a learning experience. Learn from it and move on. Most importantly, don’t ever listen to losers that tell you life is “one massive middle finger.” Life is what it is, and it is up to you to make it what you want. This is why we’re here, to learn. Learn how to be happy always, and then share the path.

What is the difference between being talented at something and good at something?

There’s a difference? If you’re good at sweeping the street, then you’re a talented street sweeper. If you’re good in bed, then you’re a talented lover. Now, if you’re excellent at something, that put’s you in an entirely different category.

What good would it be if more people were moving towards the same goal?

Pyramids will be built, mountains will move, world peace will be realized, and mankind will explore the universe. There is virtually no limit to what can be achieved.

“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”

-- Fred Rogers (1928-2003),  TV personality, minister

What is the meaning of:  "It is okay to not know, but it is not okay to not try to know."

Knowledge is important if you speak.  If you don’t know, be silent. If you don’t know, find out before you speak. If you speak, ensure what you know is true. If you don’t know it’s true, be silent.

How do we interpret life situations the way we want?

Ignore everything and everybody else, right or wrong, that dictates how you should interpret it and interpret it your way. Or, am I not reading this right?

Between the essentialist and the protean perspectives, which do you believe applies more in your life? Why?

Even though I am, essentially, male, I have been dominated by the “protean” for most of my life. I have always been able to morph into what was required. In the military, this is an essential part of what you are required to do in order to get ahead, to get the job done. If you find yourself up against a wall you need to rethink your strategy, improvise, adapt, and overcome.

Which is the wisest thing that your teacher said to you?

“You are so much smarter than this.” I didn’t know at the time that there was a significant difference between being “smart” and being “intelligent.” She explained it to me and suggested I stop worrying about keeping up with the intelligent kids and start showing them how smart I was. Skip forward to one of the high school reunions I grudgingly decided to attend. I had seen and experienced the world with military intelligence while most of my classmates had not done much. The smart kid had lived what the intelligent kids only read about.  The football jocks… weren’t. The girls that were most likely to, did. It was sad, and the last reunion I attended. I stopped the "alumni newsletter" because it became a running obituary; cancer, heart attacks, and strokes. I never had much in common with most of my classmates, anyway.

“Pushing our self past our boundaries of limitation and extreme, sometimes to something that knocks off our comfort zone, it creates new neuro-pathways with our brain, we become smarter, wiser, more clarity, our life becomes more fulfilling. Only because we have a totally new experience. We get a new brain with that. Neuroplasticity”

-- Angie Karan, blogger

Those who are older, what would you consider the happiest decade in a person’s life? Why?

After living for 67 years, I’d have to say, so far, the first ten years of retirement. I planned to retire early, managed to pull it off, saved up a small nest egg, lived in Mexico for a couple of years, came back to assist at a job I loved for a couple of years, and then settled on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi in a house my dad and I built before his passing. This is all in the past 8 years.  I have never been happier!

Do you think that car mechanics and lawyers should make the same amount of money if they work the same amount of hours?

How much money was spent on educating them?

How does the present show things that happened in the past?

Statues, flags, paintings, photographs, books, and stories. are how the past is shown in the present. When we ban these things, burn these things, tear these things down, history, good or bad, is lost to us. If we forget or deny our history, if we refuse to teach real history, history as it really happened, If we refuse to teach history at all, we are doomed to repeat it. We are doomed to fall prey to anarchists.

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” 

-- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), writer, author, philosopher

Have you ever lost someone, and had regrets you never got the opportunity to tell them you’re sorry or how much you loved them?

My father had his third and final stroke in 2019. From his first stroke, he became a bit of a pip. I dealt with it. The second and third strokes became more difficult. He became argumentative, belligerent, unkind, and accusatory. As hard as I tried to understand that this was part and parcel of the strokes, I couldn’t help but feel this was his inability to not say what was really on his mind.

We grew apart and I hated myself for it because I knew it was the stroke. I could see in his eyes, at the end, when he couldn’t speak; I saw he had more he wanted to tell me. The tears in his eyes told me he realized it was his end, and what he hadn’t said to me for years he couldn't voice to me now.

Once again, I found myself accepting the apology I never got. I did tell him I loved him, however, and I think he understood it. God bless him. 

What happens to you when?

“What” happens to me all the time. “Why” it happens to me is so much more important and what I always have to ferret out. 

Who do you live with? Is this question right or not?

There is nothing wrong with the question, but I’d really like to know why you’re concerned about the rightness of it? Grammatically, it might be better to say, “With whom do you live?” I always screw this up. For me, it’s like saying, “Where are you at?” My mother would always respond, “Between the A and the T.” One should never end a sentence with a preposition.

I don't know the rules of grammar... If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular. 

--David Ogilvy (1911-1999), advertising tycoon

Editor's Note

(Re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card)

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider an alternate viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful and constructive discussion, in an arena of mutual respect, concerning those opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 22 years with the United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with the premier, world-renowned, Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects involved in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, and wages his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteers as a chaplain at the regional medical center.