Was DWA high on some substance when he posted this? Or was he being un?characteristically bone idle in editing the articulations with which he visits his TT interlocutors? I have sent a message to Moderator Remi to raise a question about this (presumably inadvertent) discourtesy, however it arose.

DWA: "Perhaps only those without fault should be allowed to point? Would that be a start? Would there be anyone to start *with*?"

I think DWA is trying to say that he sees no virtue in any of the public figures connected with the Eastern Mediterranean turmoils. If so, I invite him to meditate on the idea that we can only recognize in others what we can compare with what we have recognized to be "inside". Some logical wallahs have shortened this idea monstrously -- to the sad detriment of many worthy 12-steppers. DWA has many virtues. But which ones has he recognized publicly?

Distinguishing humility from humbleness might be a good place for DWA to start a meditation:

humbleness: a Loch Ness Monster made by nounifying the adjective "humble", which means affecting no particularly noteworthy virtue or fame. (etymology: combination of sound made by bees and expletive meaning nonsense?). Comment: a better term for the essence LNM users might be seeking to describe would be "false modesty".

humility: the quality of being grounded in the sense of being tied in truth to this Earth rather than located in imagination on some other planet.

Related reprise -- an extract from a former TT post on the emotion of ignorance:

If we were often praised for being stoically brave beyond their our parents, mentors, caregivers expectations, we learned to "stuff" the fears then bothering us – from which an anti-dependent, and sooner or later imprudent, bravado and optimism would typically develop. From this we learned to stuff our fears; and this habit would later limit our capacities to enjoy and contribute to a mature inter-dependence. Being ignored as a child has the consequence of causing us to discount the value of narrating or commenting upon all but the most significant events. Another consequence is that only a trauma experienced at a time when a much more mature social role is expected of us, will likely have the possibility of precipitating mature acknowledgment of everyone's unavoidable inter-dependence. Yet recognition of specific ineluctable inter-dependencies is becoming ever more necessary for harmony in an inexorably globalizing world.

If, on the other hand, we often found we could amuse our seniors by dramatizing our dislikes, we learned we could get away with less than honest behaviour – from which habits of either exaggeration or false modesty would develop. And this would lead to organizationally dysfunctional disregard for accuracy, reliability, and sharing.

Thus, as children in a world in which we imagined our seniors “always” comprehended better than we did, we acquired – perhaps initially deliberately but later increasingly automatically – the habits, as if they were wisdom, of either hiding or exaggerating those ideas and thoughts we judged would be either unacceptable or fun to display dishonestly. In these ways our interests in exploration and our abilities to learn by exploration and genuine curiosity became, almost imperceptibly, either fragmented or constrained by childish overestimation of “others' wisdoms”.