» defies definetion, muse freely on any topic

Seems a reply is almost not called for. Now and then we humans get to where nothing need be said.

Fighting comes with marriage. It's like the milk in your bowl of cereal. But I don't think we learn how to argue in general better- just learn better methods of arguing with that one significant other.

I like talking to you , too.

Once again, we have driven off the women and are left talking to ourselves. I like talking to me, though. I like the sound of my voice. What a wise voice I have. It's reassuring to have such a wise presence nearby. Why, it's almost as if there were some kind of intelligent design behind all this.

Even with the f'd up mess that we humans have made of our one and only home here, now and then a completely crazy lunatic thought occurs to me. You might think I'm material for the looney bin here, but this world could be a paradise. A paradise, I tell you. Virtually all people could be healthy, well educated, have plenty of resources, and living within a sound healthy environment. People could be living well on the interest of a healthy environment. There's no need to spend the capital down to zero and then crash. No new hardware is required for this. It's all a matter of cultureware.

So near and yet so far. So near and yet so far.

Oh, now I remember. It's about the epiphany I had that I might be a stark raving mad lunatic suffering under the delusion of being sane. What triggered that was a story in the paper a day or two ago. Somebody had planted a bomb at an army recruitment station. No one was hurt, but some glass was shattered in front of Uncle Sam pointing his finger and saying he wants us. I got to thinking, the person who did that was probably a person of high minded ideals, like me. Unlike me, though, this person is a stark raving mad lunatic. Obviously, I'm not a stark raving mad lunatic like that person because ... I wasn't able to complete the sentence.

Here comes the muse fairy again. Where's a fly swatter when you need one?

Too late. My mind has the bug. And so now it's your turn to be infected, all three or four of you.

Woops. It's gone now. Senior moment.

One benefit I've gained from marriage, I think, is how to argue. As Phyllis Diller once said, "Never go to bed angry; stay up and fight."

I guess ideally, people would get along and wouldn't need to fight. But the kind of primate we are, the kind of cosmos we're in, we are made of mistakes. Mistakes in our genes, mistakes in our parenting, mistakes in our education, and let's not forget the central source of mistakes, mistakes in our own choices. Mistakes rule. It's the human condition.

At the same time, though, mistakes make our lives possible. Creativity is a mistake too. It never should have happened that way, but something went wrong and the usual correct way things are done broke down and something unexpected happened. Walla, here we are.

Anyway, perhaps the best we can hope for from humans is how to argue effectively. Effective arguing gets us somewhere better. That's the thing to keep in mind. Don't argue to destroy someone. If you want to destroy somebody, just kill him. But don't argue with him. If you're going to argue with somebody, do it with the intent of getting somewhere better than you are now.

Good advice to me, I think.