Crede vocem tuam.

And so with a life is the part unlived. 1975  was 41 years ago. Forty-one years is a long time. Some things have gotten better. Understanding. My understanding of the world in which I live has increased for better and worse. But it is more complete. Sometimes it seems that the understanding that comes with age is indistinguishable from cynicism. But part of what you learn is that even though passion sells a point it doesn't validate it. Validation in many ways is so personal that it is pointless to enlist others toward your viewpoint unless it can be shown to be personal for them too.

In the thought above, personal does not mean understandable, it doesn't mean parsable or demonstrated as a good idea. There are countless good ideas and they are not necessarily actionable or point in the same direction. In this case, good ideas don't count. They are a dime a dozen and exist on every side. Even a good idea which costs nothing is beyond the reach of most people.

To sell an idea you must make it belong to the audience. You must demonstrate the personal painful danger to each member of the audience. Only then do you have a chance of enlisting them completely in your pursuit.

I don't know where that all came from but it was kind of painful and didn't really help my typing exercise or make my mind work better. From now on I should stick to my tried and true method. If I happen upon a theme as I write then fine, follow it out. Otherwise, just go with whatever comes into my head.

I could comment on the proselytizing I regularly run into. For some reason, probably related to the section that I wrote above, I don't feel like it's my goal in life to make people believe in what I do or do not believe. So I don't quite understand why some people feel that I must be saved from my own thinking and brought home to their way of thought.

I would personally feel awful if I were to convince one of these people of faith that my way of thinking was correct and that they lost the one thing that they were holding onto. I wouldn't want to take away anyone's life ring, to make them accept my thoughts. What an awful burden to place on someone else.

So why is it that they have to push their views on me. It's not right and they would be the first to shrug it off if it had a bad effect. It wasn't their idea, they were told to convert others in order to save their souls. What if I could convince them that their view was wrong? How would they feel and how would I feel? I don't ask them to give up their thoughts, their thinking, and their beliefs. They should not ask that of me.