Humility

[Rob Mackenzie]

Hey Everyone,

What is it that keeps you humble?


With a soldier's stance I aimed my hand
at those mongrel dogs who teach,
fearing not I'd become my enemy
in the instant that I preach.
(Bob Dylan, My Back Pages)

[prokopton]

writing poetry.

Every so often I feel inspired and compose a verse or two and, thinking it to be not half bad, I post it. Then myriads of critters fall all over themselves in their haste to point out my hitherto unnoticed errors and shortcomings.

That keeps me humble.

Geoff
hearing muffled giggles and stifled laughter.

[gecian]

The ghost of Alexander Pope.

[Tony Smith]

Realizing I'm the aging man who, as a teen, I swore I'd never be - the one standing in the market line pulling exact change from a soft plastic holder while everyone else waits impatiently behind me, ATM card in hand.

Tony
two cents
more or less

[Rachel Bunting]

Realizing that most of my friends are not nearly as nerdy as I am.


Rachel
[SIZE=1]and this one time, at band camp...[/SIZE]

[prokopton]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
Realizing I'm the aging man who, as a teen, I swore I'd never be - the one standing in the market line pulling exact change from a soft plastic holder while everyone else waits impatiently behind me, ATM card in hand.

Tony
two cents
more or less

You mean the type that just opens when you squeeze it?!
no zippers or velcro, the sides of the opening just.. part when you squeeze it.
amazing.. I have one of those too.

Geoff
and I mutter about, "people who can't bring cash to the express line."

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by prokopton
You mean the type that just opens when you squeeze it?!
no zippers or velcro, the sides of the opening just.. part when you squeeze it.

That's the one, red and complete with clasped ball chain.

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by rachelb

Realizing that most of my friends are not nearly as nerdy as I am.

You're only halfway there - wait until you're old and a nerd.

Tony

[Kristi]

Guilt.

[earthshoes]

I've spent the last three weeks as a substitute cafeteria worker in the local public school (last day: Wednesday of this week). Specifically, I work in the dishroom, washing away partially eaten food, scrubbing pots, mopping floors . . . The hardest part was having the teachers, many of whom I've subbed for, look right through me, or treat me like I'm their personal servant.

I don't know what I thought the people behind the counter (and the brooms, and tool boxes) at school were like before this, but I suspect I assumed that they took them out of a broom closet every morning, dusted them off, wound them up, put a spatula (or broom, or screwdriver) in their hands and pointed them toward the kitchen (bathroom or halls) where they worked for eight hours a day serving food (or sweeping, or replacing light bulbs).

I found out that they are people with children in college and high school, running goat and/or cattle farms, with homes under construction, worries about pension plans, grandkids, and thoughts on how the world would be a be a better place if only . . .

I found out that they have a lot more fun on break than many of the people on the faculty. There are fewer concerns about how they look or what someone will think of them if they speak their minds. I discovered sharp wits and a very real (teetering on the edge of crude sometimes) sense of humor bred by a lifetime of working in the dirt, one way or another. It has been delight to be included and trusted with their stories (though I don't think they know I'm collecting them).

I've come home at the end of every day exhausted. I don't particularly want to do this job full-time, but I know now that I can if I have to.

Anyway, I will never be the same for it.

mary

[Donner]

I'd say my 20-year old daughter, but it's my mission in life to keep her humble.

The mirror, the writings of Oswald Chambers and things mathmatical.

Donner,
the wonder bookkeeper

(It's a wonder
that they allow her
to be one.)

[antidora]

So many things, among which the rigorous philosophy of Simone Weil ( see sign-off quote).
But really it was the Christmas card factory. I worked there during one summer vac. from university. Christmas cards in August. One line had 12 cards to the box, the others worked on the decimal system: boxes of 5, 10, 20 or 50 cards. The work was mindless (putting the right number of cards and envelopes in each box) but not so mindless as to leave one's mind free to daydream or compose poetry. The mind was totally engaged at a very primitive level of counting. All day. Every day. Six days a week.
I counted cards and envelopes. And then I counted the steps I took walking home, I counted the number of houses I passed on the bus, I counted in my dreams. I finally understood the Marxist concept of alienation.
People I knew, my best friend's mother, a girl who had once been my father's secretary, looked through me when we passed in the corridor: I worked on the line, they worked in the office.
In a reasonably just world, everyone should do a stint in the Christmas card factory.
best wishes
antidora

[Scotty]

What is it that keeps you humble?
Seriously...
Being a parent and discovering that, despite my mistakes with them, despite the fact that there are things I could have done better, they love me.
The woman in my life.
It's better to be happy than to be right.
Not-so-seriously...
Scavella's Mantra
My golf handicap

Scotty

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by Scotty

My golf handicap.

I'm a 16 and haven't played with anyone higher in two years. I'm sick of getting strokes.

Tony
I want to give!

[Rob Mackenzie]

Yes. Despite the presence of Outside with its egoists and self-justifications, I’ve found most people in pffa to be a humble lot. This thread shows why, and it’s not just about poetry either.

It’s good to see how many light years away humility is from being a doormat too.

Anyway, I’d add:

1. being a parent – you can never make the right decisions all the time, even if you followed all the advice of people who really know what being a parent is all about.
2. rejection slips – I am one of those (sad?) people who keeps all his rejection slips in a drawer. Does anyone else do that?
3. the other day, I spoke on the phone to arrange taking a course in advanced Italian conversation – and I could hardly string two sentences together. I was surprised I wasn’t offered a beginner’s refresher course.

Rob

[prokopton]

Originally posted by Rob Mackenzie

2. rejection slips – I am one of those (sad?) people who keeps all his rejection slips in a drawer. Does anyone else do that?


I've kept a very nice two-page rejection letter from Asimov's Weekly Science Fiction Mag explaining how my story didn't fit their profile. Their stories, it appears, invariably have an upbeat ending, which I hadn't taken notice of. Mine was not quite so upbeat, what with my protagonist having lost a leg and being filled with doubts about whether he had inadvertently killed his rescuer! Minor points really, thought I.
Oh well.

Geoff

[cookala]

Believe it or not, Mother Nature - ever watch a tornado up close? or get caught in a hurricane? watch a perfect sunset? These things make me feel small and grateful in the face of such incredible perfection and majesty. That, and when I read or hear about the some of the horrific living conditions of the poor, the sickly and the elderly. It makes me realize what a lucky girl I am, and thankful for what I do have.

cookala
yep.

[antigone507]

Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity
A.R. Ammons

You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are:
gosling shit (which J. Williams said something
was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout

shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit,
sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit
(awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit,

horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark
kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros
shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit

(dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that
oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts,
chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet

shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo
shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation),
cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and

tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what
a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing
blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit,

magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid
to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie
shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit,

wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe
shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle
shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in

advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to
assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry
siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the

marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit,
hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle
shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less

lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of
alluvial dreams)—a vast ordure is a broken down
cloaca—macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile

along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit,
antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit
(very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull

shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and
razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing
fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby

shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark
shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco
shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards

induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine
inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit,
seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule.

[novapsyche]

Originally posted by Rob Mackenzie
2. rejection slips – I am one of those (sad?) people who keeps all his rejection slips in a drawer. Does anyone else do that?

I keep careful track of all my submissions and whatever responses I get. I also keep the rejection note itself. So I have at least two spots where I can refresh my memory as to who has turned down my work and, in the best cases, why.

I had one rejection so kind that I subscribed to the journal.

[Ted]

Reading Lola Two's poetry.
Specifically - and most recently - "Poem."

Yours in humility and covetousness,

Ted

[Mander]

Believe it or not, changing my son's poopie diaper. No matter what I've accomplished in my life, the extraordinary and mundane alike, I always remember that I started out pooping my pants just like everyone else. And the smell...P. U.! :rolleyes:

Cheers,
Mander :cool:

[Michael Collins]

I've a few.

My mum, her life, what she went through to raise me and my sis' alone (I know that sounds like the beginning of a teen 'pome').

Working with people with disabilities (intellectual) keeps, or kept me humble (before I left Oz).

I don't know why, but beautiful women humble me. Not super model types, but those natural types. The ones who make you write bad poetry.

My first day in prison when my cell mate started singing Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon. Ack.

Mike

[Ted]

*dagnabbitsnip*