I beg your pardon.

Times sure have changed.

Oh, we can best this subject with a stick.  So. We might as well.  Because, it just keeps happening over and over again.  Time keeps on changing.  All the time.

Here’s a change.  To me, it seems that our culture is losing all decency.  At least, I believe there is a lot of this happening here in the United States.  For instance.  We have one candidate running for PRESIDENT, who speaks with incredible traducement.  Yet, his followers seem not to mind at all.  Like it just rolls right off them.  To me…. he seems to respect no one, but himself.  No “We The People” there.

Is it because saying “WTF” has become as commonplace, as “I beg your pardon?” was a 50 years ago?  Perhaps.  I mean, it certainly makes me want to say.. WTF.

Our third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was left to his own devices at a  very young age.  He was 14 when his father died, and he had very little help in his very own upbringing.  As a youngster in the culture of Virginian Plantations, he was surrounded by all types of people.  He considered this carefully, having recently encountered  a wide array of individuals… including.. card players, fox hunters, horse racers, and gamblers, as well as scientists, and professionals.

To summarize his observation:  Which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer?  That of a horse jockey?  A fox hunter?  An Orator?  Or the honest advocate of my country’s rights?

I think we know the path he chose. The Noble Cause.  The Thomas Jeffersons of today are few and far between.

But yet…. here we are.  And how quickly we have traveled here.  Our current existence is inundated with information.   The internet affords us any answer to anything.  Just about.  There are resources, and tools, and guides, and schools, and games… to infinity and beyond.

How about your personal betterment?  Today, you can meditate, workout, prevent the onset of Alzheimers, and take an IQ test… all before breakfast.  You know, forty years ago… if your family was lucky enough to go to Kentucky for a long weekend camping trip… and you stopped at a Shoney’s restaurant on the way there… you could sit down at the table… and there in front of you was the triangle of wisdom.   Right next to your small orange juice.

Yes.  The IQ Tester.  A triangle block of wood, with little holes drilled in it.  And in those holes were wooden pegs that looked a LOT like golf tees.  All the holes had pegs….  except for one.  And your work began… jumping pegs… trying to get it whittled down to just one peg remaining in the board.  And if you succeeded… there you sat… GENIUS!!! … in front of your stack of dollar pancakes with strawberry syrup oozing down the sides.

(If you have never experienced this 8th wonder of the world… stop by your nearest Cracker Barrel… and you are in for a treat.)

But back to the time warp, again.

We gain so much with all this new technology, and information.  Our world is more artificially-connected than it ever has been.   We say we are more socially connected, but I think it is something entirely different.  A form of artificial intelligence.  Key word in the phrase… artificial.

Yes, I would argue that we are losing our true intelligence.  Among other things.  Like decency, and courtesy, and etiquette.  We have lost touch with civility, and good manners.

Because…. in a time long ago… when you were finished with the Challenge of the Wooden Wisdom Triangle, you carefully placed all the pegs, back into the holes, so the next person could easily start their quest for the rankings of GENIUS!!!.

This my friends, was good form.

I think our world needs just a little more good form.
I’ll try my best today.  It might not be as incredible as being “the honest advocate of my country’s rights.”  But I will always, always, respect the rights of other  people.  Of.   We, the people.