But Jennifer made chocolate-covered bananas for the kids and called me upstairs to eat a half that she had reserved for me.
Instead of polemics I got chocolate. It was a profitable trade off. (You all know what I’m thinking about, right?).
So I’m avoiding the embrace of a (possible) tar baby. Great. Are there rules I could adopt in case I don’t have chocolate to pull me into a better mind? Like:
Thou shalt not ever link and respond to someone who declares that everyone who disagrees with him is either ignorant or practicing deception.
The problem is that you feel that not responding counts as an admission of guilt. But surely, given the size and amazing level of stupidity in the Internet, no one can be held accountable for not trying to correct every smear?
Still, I don’t think a command will be enough. You have to remind yourself of wisdom.
Though shalt remember that those who would listen to someone who besmirches the character of those who disagree with him must already be so much in his thrall that they are not going to be corrected by you, no matter what. And the rest already know the man is lacking intelligence
Not sure this if this is helpful or not.
That cartoon has already helped me more than once to refrain from wasting time. It’s great to be able to step back, get some perspective, and laugh at yourself just when you’re about to launch in on “Project Set Things Right” on someone’s blog or forum.
Not that it’s always a waste of time, of course. Still, you’re usually better off having your fingers sticky with chocolate banana than with an online tar baby.
It seems to me that the obvious solution here is to have chocolate available at all times.
Hey, Ben, that’s my kind of solution and one I try to abide by!
She’s not at all kidding. Ben. I grew up to discover in my teen years that, if I searched long enough, I could always find a stash of M&M packages hidden somewhere in the house.
This was before the web, but being married to an engineer who subscribed to Byte Magazine and had a TRS-80 before PCs were cool, maybe she saw what was coming and decided to get ready.
Mark, you understand that never happened BEFORE you became a teenager, so maybe it’s not fair to blame Dad.