ALAN AND AL | 2006-10-01
NOT SPAM
Ok everyone lets stop kissing Bob's ass, Bob is a sharp cookie for sure and he has a way of opening our feable minds in new directions thats why he writes these posts. Remember Bob is the teacher and we are the students, lets point out each others flaws etc when we respond to one of Bob's reflections on reality.
Comment by Alan B
ME:
This is the perfect comment, in that it combines a real insight with giving me a chance to make a point I wanted to make.
Yes, Alan, I keep demanding corrections and criticisms. I want you to come at me with exactly what I am doing wrong.
On the other hand, you commenters occupy a very unique place in my life. I have done many things in my life that were abolutely great, brave true and showed true genius. But no one else can appreciate it unless they have read my hundreds of exact explanations here. Much of what I did conisisted of doing exactly the right , seemingly SIMPLE -- thing at exactly the right time. Bu the point of the exercise was often precisely that the people around me did NOT understand any of that.
So when commenters appreciate what I do, they also do the same kind of thinking. It shows. I have gotten a BUNCH of comments lately that show you chewing over my exact way of thinking and making use of it. You are thinking BASICS. Once you start using basics it is hard to remember what you thought like BEFORE you got down to them.
But I see it, and it gladdens my black old heart enormously.
According to the group that calls itself The Greatest Generation your compliments would be wasted on a really tough member of the World War II Generation. Naturally no group in history has ever been such suckers for umixed Jehovah-like praise than that same generation.
Except their twin cousins, the Jews. Jews are always talking about how "frank" and "realistic" they are, but if you say anything about them that is not truly groveling praise they start holding their breaths like infants.
You all know the results of this. We live in a society where everybody tries to act like he doesn't need praise and the debate is whether he MEANS it or not. You and I are here to grow up, to talk sense.
We all need praise and we all need sunlight. We do not need a third-degree burn. But nobody here has given me sunburn, becuase I think I DESERVE a lot of praise.
More important, only you are the people who can GIVE it to me.
But, as Alan B. points out, there is always a "BUT."
Your praise is good for me and for you.
The more distance I can put between me and "The Greatest Generation" the happier I am. As Alan makes very clear. I am NOT a person who wants you to admire what I did when I was young and therefore want YOU to exempt me from any criticism NOW. I am like the WII vet who keeps pulling his pants down in a bar and then, when the police come for him, shouts, "I was at D-Day!" so I won't get arrested.
I am more conceited than that. I think I can prove to you right now that I STILL do great things and I have a LOT to teach you. You can't see what I have to teach you if you don't understand what I did right. So it helps YOU.
It also helps ME. want you to understand how great the things I did WERE, because no one else can do it.
But I also need your corrections and criticism even MORE than I need the compliments.
I have said before that one of major secrets of interrogation is letting people TALK. You let me TALK and when someone writes as much and as deeply as I do here, there is no way I can keep you from knowing exactly who I am. You can catchme out a lot, as Joe did when he forced me to explain what I meant by professional interrogator. I completely forgot that there are people who know what "professional interrogators" are like, and Joe doesn't LIKE them. I would rather Joe make me explain that here than for an enemy to catch me at it in the middle of an interview on Fox.
A good teacher will always try to learn more from his students than they do from him. That's what SEMINARS are for.