(Being of mature-enough years, . . . )

I still have:

• A taste in people or a 'sense of morals', that has been mostly useful.
• A certainty that happiness is possible sometimes, even with hard work.
• No experience to lead me to doubt that I have spent effort mainly on those who deserve it.
• I haven't fallen for the notion that, 'Everything possible, one by one, / Must be good for anyone.'   (I.e. the principle of amoral/tasteless multifariousness ... or basically covetousness of bric-a-brac.)
• I haven't ever been intimate with a fool, a monster, a jerk, a creep, or a really bad female (or male.)
• I have avoided circular motivation, projected or redirected hostility, irrational bad-temper, or the fear of being too generous over too little.
• I have lived . . . , a life that on prolonged self-examination, appears to exemplify relatively continuous progress, despite recurrent setbacks.   And, what is more, progress that is not just from one simple early-realized principle, nor completely ad-hoc or discontinuous.   Rather that which has grown from the bud and also gotte true of aim with progress.
• An unwillingness to temporise with a violent immoral, amoral, or insurgently hypocritical hostility.
• Consistent lack of need to reverse myself radically.*   Despite disciplinary intervals. (*Bipolar moralising.)
• Consistent lack of variation sharply between the fecklessly tolerant and the harshly intolerant of varying things (Bipolar amorality.)
• Willingness to throw away anything but the valuables.
• Dignity, emotions, a sense of humor, a dryly clinical viewpoint as appropriate, good taste, perceptive taste, innovativeness, & brevity with a good point.
• Ability, & abilities.
• Knowlege of when to stop, e.g. when the point has been.
  
  
• - and that's just the non-material things.

- Page created November 17, 2004, by Russell Hess, Webmaster (hess1@bigfoot.com) of 'UpSky2' & 'UpSky'.