All of that, and this:
I have met and spoken with folks from floor scrubbers and ditch diggers and folks who were convicts (or on their way to that), to Governors and Nobel Prize winners.
They ALL had something in common. They knew more about something than I did. Whether it was a 'trick' to get a mirror streakless clean, to run a big floor buffer without wrasslin' it, or some insight into government or a fine point of chemistry or geology I'd missed, EVERY one of them knew more about something than I did.
I don't care how smart someone thinks they are, that's a mite humbling, but it also represents as many opportunities to learn something new as you meet people.
Even if I don't agree with someone's politics/worldview/'choices'/religion, if we can set all that aside for a moment, or even discuss those differences civilly (after all, those are their choices, and they make them for them, I make mine for me and each lives accordingly), there is a chance to learn something.
And when you meet those special folks who agree with you on so many levels that you connect, even better.
That's right - and a hard admission from me, as I am, in the first place, a grumpy old bastard, and more importantly an introvert most all my life. I find great peace and normalcy in solitude, be that in my housebound end (so far), or walking high trails where no human ever goes.
But even as I say that, there is a gregarious side of me that oft goes wanting. My woman was the one charged with draggin me, kicking and screaming, to family functions and community events. Outside of the car show in Spokane, various rodeos and rondys, and the 4th of July, I really would have little to do with human company. It was her. She did that. And when I got there I always had a good time.
I remember the last function I went to - It;s been a while now, but the dragon boat races down in lakeside - And that also was a woman draggin me there. I had such a good time.
There is a thing there... IRL. Human contact.
I know you pretty well
@Smokin Joe . We've corresponded for year and years. But all of that amounts to about what we'd get done in some crappy bar over beers in a single episode.... And so much data is missing - The gestures you make; the inflection of your speech; the facial expressions as you tell your tales; The smell of the place; the music in the background; the snappy retorts of the waitress..
Or maybe out fishin. Or maybe just on the back porch over sweet tea... The where doesn't matter. All that would be wrapped around the conversation. All that making that time memorable, even without your drunk BIL lighting himself on fire at the grill, or a thousand other things that might happen just right out of the blue.
I might recall what you said - Like the other day when you said something like:
Life man.
Get hammered.
Buy a keg.
Nailed it.
But that was deep man... Of course I remembered it, every word.
But how much better with all that missing data?
