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[C Russell <mtbetter AT yahoo.com>]

James-

I recognized my impulse response in your description,
though I hesitate especially at this point in my life
to put myself in the successful category.  

I also recognize the fate/free will dichotomy in it. 
I think I examine what I have done because somewhere
down deep I believe that I could have made another,
different, decision.  I believe the right option is
available to me.  I believe this so innately I suspect
it is part of my personality makeup and not a
conscious choice to believe, though I consciously
agree with my inclination.  (If that made a bit of
sense)

Just the mind wandering...

Homesteader-types are often those who believe they can
choose.  Is it possible for everyone to believe in
choice?

Cathy


--- clanSkeen <sgian AT planetc.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> 
> > There is no reasoning with someone who lives in an
> excuse driven world.
> 
> The most frustrating work I've attempted to date was
> some years ago when I 
> was doing custom programming with a partner (using
> Lattice C, it was that 
> long ago).  When the program or subroutine would
> crash, I immediately 
> started combing through the code to see where we'd
> made a mistake. 
> Invariably Roger's conclusion was "There's a bug in
> the compiler."  and he 
> went about to PROVE that his code was sound but it
> was only the compiler's 
> fault.   In some four years of doing this work the
> score for errors ended up 
> being:   Programmers:  43,234    Compiler:   0
> 
> I did 90% of the work, sometimes 110% of the work
> since I found Roger's 
> errors while he was still setting up tests to prove
> that the compiler was 
> buggy.  Nor did it do any good three years into the
> partnership to remind 
> him that in three years of trying to prove the
> compiler was faulty, he was 
> wrong 100% of the time.  "Yeah, maybe, but this time
> I'm sure!  I didn't 
> make any mistakes, there's a bug in the compiler."
> 
> I've seen that paradigm at play anytime I encounter
> "successful" people or 
> wastrel people.  At the drop of a hat, the
> successful begin an intense and 
> meticulous examination of their decisions and
> actions.  If examples other 
> than theirs appear, they examine them just as
> closely to see if there is 
> anything to be gleaned from them.  Even direct
> criticisms are thrown into 
> the fining furnace to burn away the dross and see if
> anything remains might 
> be of service.  Then and only then does the
> successful person look around to 
> see if there is some external thing affecting their
> success.
> 
> The wastrel is not so but looks everywhere but
> within themselves for the 
> reason for their wastrel-ness.  It's always someone
> else's fault, external 
> influences, circumstances.  In Pearl S Buck's "The
> Good Earth"  Wang Lung's
> wastrel uncle comes, as it says, "slouching along a
> furrow" to ask his 
> nephew for some money - which annoyed the crap out
> of the protagonist 
> because he had
> worked in the fields for his money while the uncle
> and his uncle's whole 
> family lounged about:
> 
> "I ask you pardon, my uncle, for not stopping in my
> work.  These beans, 
> must, if they are to bear, as you know, be
> cultivated twice and thrice. 
> Yours,
> doubtless, are finished.  I am very slow - a poor
> farmer - never finishing 
> my work in time to rest."  His uncle understood
> perfectly Wang Lung's 
> malice, but
> he answered smoothly,  "I am a man of evil destiny. 
> This year out of every
> twenty seed beans, one came up, and in such poor
> growth as that there is no 
> use in putting the hoe down.  We shall have to buy
> beans this year if we are 
> to eat them."
> 
> And that is why the excuse driven are spring-loaded
> and on a razor's edge to 
> defend their illusion that it's all SEF.  Even the
> most common discourse 
> threatens to shatter that illusion and evokes a
> reaction:
> 
> "A hand powered mill will grind enough masa for a
> large meal in about ten 
> minutes."
> "Oh, yeah, there you go again telling everyone what
> to do!"
> 
> And you are r-r-r-r.  You are r-r-r-r.    You are
> ......... right.  (There I 
> said it, Lynda is right).  There's no reasoning with
> the excuse-monger. 
> Reasoning eventually comes up against reality and
> experience.  To excuses 
> there is no end.
> 
> 
> James
> 
> 
> 
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