Also, I am trying to not say wrong things, to track things I say for excitement or as a knee-jerk reaction, and to “hmm” in response to such things being said (by adults)… I don’t see the grand mileage come out of it. For example, my kid just gets confused when he asks if I stay to live with his family and I say he’s going to have a wife who has to have a say in such things. I also see some mileage getting eaten.
Suppose your friends are interesting people with strong opinions—truly good people saying things despite the threat of being fired or conceivably having a court case fabricated against them; such threats are frequent, and sometimes not empty, as was the case with one mathematician I know. (She was sued but not fired.) Some, in the face of even worse threats that… almost never get fulfilled, but are still very unpleasant. Your friends speak the truth loudly and untiringly, and at some point they lose patience with people who question it, and after a while start implying that questioning it must be motivated by more than curiosity.
You are the local ruminant who gets to hear stuff and chews at it. And then there comes the moment when nobody wants the ruminant, they were just being polite about it but it’s really time to move on..?
I walk a fine line, being the ruminant; I still can give people gifts and listen to them and frame exciting things as questions, but I know I will pay for it. I just don’t know, what.
Also, I am trying to not say wrong things, to track things I say for excitement or as a knee-jerk reaction, and to “hmm” in response to such things being said (by adults)… I don’t see the grand mileage come out of it. For example, my kid just gets confused when he asks if I stay to live with his family and I say he’s going to have a wife who has to have a say in such things. I also see some mileage getting eaten.
Suppose your friends are interesting people with strong opinions—truly good people saying things despite the threat of being fired or conceivably having a court case fabricated against them; such threats are frequent, and sometimes not empty, as was the case with one mathematician I know. (She was sued but not fired.) Some, in the face of even worse threats that… almost never get fulfilled, but are still very unpleasant. Your friends speak the truth loudly and untiringly, and at some point they lose patience with people who question it, and after a while start implying that questioning it must be motivated by more than curiosity.
You are the local ruminant who gets to hear stuff and chews at it. And then there comes the moment when nobody wants the ruminant, they were just being polite about it but it’s really time to move on..?
I walk a fine line, being the ruminant; I still can give people gifts and listen to them and frame exciting things as questions, but I know I will pay for it. I just don’t know, what.