Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Op 18-4-2021 om 14:58 schreef Bald Eagle:
> Thank you Bill, I do really appreciate indeed your comments and I am
> sadly aware of your own experience of this. The thought passed through
> my mind too. However, I wanted to give Yve what in French is called "Le
>
> own conviction, whatever he may make of it.
>
> --
> Thomas

(I'm guessing something got omitted in there, but I understand where you're
going)

Indeed.  Now, we don't really need to "be fair" or give Ive/Yve a fair hearing -
because he can post [virtually] anything he wants here, any time he wants - and
there's damned little any but a select few can do to stop him.

Perhaps like so many before - artistically brilliant and enviously talented -
but psychologically....  wow.

I certainly give plenty of people a fair chance to present their views and
discuss them and what they believe their reasons for having them are.  Maybe we
agree, maybe we don't.   Sometimes we leave it at that, sometimes it begins a
long and continuing conversation that can last years.

But I'm not getting any younger, and I've learned some hard and painful lessons
from people who have quite frankly surprised me by their sudden and inexplicable
U-turns in thought/belief/behaviour.   So I just add them to the list of people
who are lost, too far gone, or too dangerously damaged for me to consider it
worthwhile bothering with.

As you say, I sadly got put through the wringer, but: I _learned_ a lot - both
about other people and myself, had my eyes opened, my illusions dispelled, and
after 10 years am doing well enough.  Although it no longer hurts, it's the pain
of the burn that keeps the child from grasping the hot handle of the pan on the
stove again.
Having instructed college chemistry, I did my due diligence and asked of the
students on the first day of lab, "Before you go and just thoughtlessly pick up
a beaker - what's the difference in appearance between cold glass and hot
glass?"
<silence>
"There isn't any."

I mean, I'm generally a top-of-the-Nolan-chart Libertarian who will genuinely
defend people's God-given Rights to say, or do, all manner of things.  But I
always admonish them with a reminder that "with great power comes great
responsibility" - and freedom and liberty are the fonts of personal power.  So
just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD.  Just because I'm
not going to stop you, doesn't mean that it isn't still a bad idea, or that I
won't try to dissuade you.  It also doesn't mean that after you do it, I won't
judge you for it, lay the blame and responsibility at your feet, or think that
it's a swell idea to continue my association with you.  I may, at some future
time, even realize and regret that I may have played some part and bore some
responsibility as well.   Stuff happens.  You can either get all hung up on it -
or move past it, grow, mature, and hopefully do better next time.


You were making an honest and wholly innocent effort to freely give of your
time, experience, and expertise to breathe new life into a set of procedural
textures that are decades old - and he decided to pop in out of nowhere,
snarling like a rabid dog, hurling blanket accusations and baseless attributions
of motive, intent, and willful negligence, and then just as abruptly stormed
out.

So, based on past similar behaviour and a peek under the the facade across the
interwebs, I'm making the call that there's a whole lot going on in that can of
worms, such that I don't see any value in getting drawn into it, and [caveat]
depending on the specific details of location, proximity and resources, one can
never really tell what any given individual is apt to do.  As an American, I was
surprised to find that Norway placed top of the list in 2011.  Maybe the
pressure cooker in TX has just been building up to bursting for the last decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJKJM36lMTE

Now, if I'm wrong or there's some underlying heap of stuff but everything gets
aired out and fixed up - fine.  I can be wrong.  I'm wrong a lot.  I prefer to
be "right", and that's why I spend such an inordinate amount of time learning,
and fixing things, and helping other to improve.


So, if people want to be decent and civilized, so be it.
If they want to be an epithet, that's their choice as well.

But at this point, regardless of whether or not it's "their bat and their ball,"
they can go home if they want to.  It's up to them.

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