TheBanyanTree: Metaphysically Speaking

[Monique Colver]

I'm on a mail list. Big surprise that. It's a supposedly professional list,
where people in my profession-by-default chatter at length about how to tell
the difference between a debit and a credit, and occasionally things blow up
and people yell at each other, and other people decry the loss of
professionalism, and other people tell those people to go stick it in their
ear, and now and then someone is asked to please leave and go away because
they're annoying, ostentatious, a bully, or we just don't like them. Of
course, this isn't up to us, but we have had people removed from the list by
complaining to the sponsoring organization, like the guy from Florida who
reveled in giving out incorrect information to the legions of newbies who
want to learn how to be bookkeepers in three easy steps and aren't bright
enough to understand that just because someone says something is so, doesn't
make it so. That wasn't his only transgression; if it had been, there would
be far more people evicted. There are people on the list who give in-depth
detailed information that goes over the heads of most people reading the
list, and who has been asked to either speak in plain English or just shut
up, and he has responded by telling certain people to not respond to his
posts, as if he has, by posting in a public forum, the right to decide who
will and who will not respond. As if. Some people live in a land of
illusion. 

 

Recently there has been a raging discussion about metaphysics. What this has
to do with anything is anyone's guess, but the metaphysicists have fought
that particular argument by stating that everything is connected, and then
running off at the mouth with obscure references and paragraphs that could
win awards for obfuscation and length while saying nothing, a veritable
display of the game called "my brain is bigger than your brain!" As if
anyone really cares. Some of the nicest people I know have little tiny
brains. Of course, some of the nicest people I know have giant brains that
barely fit inside their heads either, so it's not as if the two are mutually
exclusive. They're not even vaguely related. 

 

Or maybe my brain is just too small, because they lost me, and my interest,
long ago. We can make arguments for or against anything, and we can talk all
day about generalities and the essence of being, but it doesn't tell us
anything about anyone. It doesn't even interest me. I'd show you an example
of the chief instigator's ramblings, but they didn't interest me enough to
save any of it, "it" being a broad mishmash of words strung together that,
if closely examined, don't tell us much of anything except that the
instigator thinks he's educating the rest of us losers in how smart he is. 

 

Me, I like people. Ideas and theories are all very nice, and useful in their
place, but in the end, I want to know about people. About how they got where
they are, and what they saw along the way. I want to know that sometimes
just knowing something is there is good enough, without it having to be
explained and dissected, analyzed until there's nothing left but a bare
supposition that bears little resemblance to how we experience things in
real life. I know that people are good, generally speaking, and that
everyone has their own experiences and internal forces that ensures they
cannot be boiled down to an abstract idea of HOW LIFE IS. Abstractions are
neither applied nor practical, and while they have their place, it's the
reality of people that I want to know, because the people I know are all far
more interesting in reality than in the abstract. 

 

There's room for both, if one has time. If one chooses to allocate time, I
should say, for there's always time for what we want, if we want it. Me, I
have no time. I'm too busy enjoying the reality. That, and my brain's too
small. That's okay with me though. It fits inside my head, which is the
important thing.