Not doing it again
Oct. 25th, 2008 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerTonight's main story is prompted by a comment in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dickgloucester's LJ.
This is a given. As a gender, we are of very limited usefulness. I've known this for many years now. We are also frequently vain, stubborn, weak-willed, overbearing, passive-aggressive and prone to delusions of adequacy. Some of us learn to have the minimal grace to apologise, and this gets us through the first twenty or thirty times we foul up. Sooner or later, though, it becomes obvious that however sincerely we repent of our failures and misdeeds, it doesn't stop us doing them again.
No excuses. Just a possible, very small, mitigating factor.
When I broke the next door neighbour's window by throwing a ball too hard in our somewhat exiguous back yard (I was somewhere between five and fifteen at the time), it was a comparatively simple matter not to do that again, and I never did. Specific actions are easy not to repeat, even for a man. Being an arsehole is a behaviour, and that is more difficult to eradicate, because it arises from a combination of internal and external factors that's often difficult or impossible to change. Escaping from bad habits takes constant vigilance ("Constant Vigilance!") and self-government, and that's all hard and stuff. There are habit patterns of mine that drive the Countess crazy, and I know it and I know they're bad and I try not to fall back into them, but I still do, from time to time, and every relapse makes the next one more likely, undermines my efforts to be a better husband and reinforces her belief that I never will.
Apologies don't cut it. But sometimes they're the best we can do.
In other news, the Flymo Pac-a-Shredder is a thing of beauty and a joy for however long it lasts. I've seen mixed reviews of it, some people complaining that the safety interlock on the plastic hopper is a touch on the tilly-willy side and prone to cause problems. So far, touch wood, ours hasn't, and the remains of the buddleia that EverCRAPest had to chop down now nestle demurely in two large bin bags awaiting the final disposition of the compost bin. And we can almost walk all the way around the garden again. This is a good.
Happy putting the clock back in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland night, everyone. (EDIT: sheesh.)
dickgloucester's LJ.This is a given. As a gender, we are of very limited usefulness. I've known this for many years now. We are also frequently vain, stubborn, weak-willed, overbearing, passive-aggressive and prone to delusions of adequacy. Some of us learn to have the minimal grace to apologise, and this gets us through the first twenty or thirty times we foul up. Sooner or later, though, it becomes obvious that however sincerely we repent of our failures and misdeeds, it doesn't stop us doing them again.
No excuses. Just a possible, very small, mitigating factor.
When I broke the next door neighbour's window by throwing a ball too hard in our somewhat exiguous back yard (I was somewhere between five and fifteen at the time), it was a comparatively simple matter not to do that again, and I never did. Specific actions are easy not to repeat, even for a man. Being an arsehole is a behaviour, and that is more difficult to eradicate, because it arises from a combination of internal and external factors that's often difficult or impossible to change. Escaping from bad habits takes constant vigilance ("Constant Vigilance!") and self-government, and that's all hard and stuff. There are habit patterns of mine that drive the Countess crazy, and I know it and I know they're bad and I try not to fall back into them, but I still do, from time to time, and every relapse makes the next one more likely, undermines my efforts to be a better husband and reinforces her belief that I never will.
Apologies don't cut it. But sometimes they're the best we can do.
In other news, the Flymo Pac-a-Shredder is a thing of beauty and a joy for however long it lasts. I've seen mixed reviews of it, some people complaining that the safety interlock on the plastic hopper is a touch on the tilly-willy side and prone to cause problems. So far, touch wood, ours hasn't, and the remains of the buddleia that EverCRAPest had to chop down now nestle demurely in two large bin bags awaiting the final disposition of the compost bin. And we can almost walk all the way around the garden again. This is a good.
Happy putting the clock back in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland night, everyone. (EDIT: sheesh.)
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-26 07:43 am (UTC)Noted.