It was quite biting out this morning when finding it hovering around 8 degrees, but at least the wind did die down in the night. I think it made it up to around 30 degrees when out of the wind and in the direct sunlight early this afternoon, so at least it wasn’t that bad the entire day.
I stopped to pay a long-overdue visit to one of my dear friends this morning just to make sure all was OK with him over this past month. All sounded well on his side of the fence, so I proceeded to share with him some of the quirky happenings that came my way which were worth laughing about. Of course when crazy things do happen to us, they’re usually not funny at the time, but after a few weeks or months, they tend to become hilarious.
One subject I couldn’t help but bring up was my resurrecting the subject of acedia and how much more it’s taking place in our world. I’m convinced it’s a by-product of all this political correctness, which as far as I’m concerned, has grown very much out of control. I made sure he didn’t confuse acedia with sloth because they’re markedly different. The way I look at it, sloth is more about being lazy and acedia is more about turning one’s head in an apathetic way whenever seeing or hearing people doing or saying wrong things and not speaking up about them.
We sometimes see it in families, but now all the more often in the general public. We can be assured that there are people in positions of power who’re remaining silent to things that they know fully-well are wrong. Of course we can justify all we want for not speaking up, but the “guilt” or “sin” of acedia still remains.
A number of years ago a naughty old man used make a habit of pretending he didn’t know about certain errors in judgement his wife would make, and then later on when confronted about it, he’d say something like, “You never asked my opinion.” There was one time his wife had inadvertently done something wrong which could’ve been life threatening yet he knowingly remained silent. It took an innocent bystander’s comment to his wife that alerted her to that dangerous oversight. If I were his wife and just for starters, I would’ve given him a good tongue lashing. So much for sharing and caring within a marriage. After hearing about that one particular situation, I lost all respect for that naughty old monkey.
Late this afternoon I had a very nice visit with a recent transplant to our City. Since I hadn’t spoken with her since she got settled in, I was delighted to hear all is well and likely Mason City even more. I’m still convinced our City fathers should be focusing on getting more retirees moving here from those over-built and super-expensive metro areas, and especially out West.
I was reminded again how much more difficult it is to get around in big cities as well as the higher costs of goods and services. We both agreed that metro areas are nice places to visit but not anywhere to live out one’s life. I fully understand the young workers following job markets, but certainly not a place where a person would want to retire. Nearly everyone has the mindset as they enter their retirement years of having much quieter and gentler lives without any un-necessary stresses that could be easily avoided by just picking up and moving somewhere that has good healthcare and fewer people.
Before heading home, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and happened to run into a dear soul whom I’d not seen for at least five years. When noticing she was carrying the cutest little tyke, I discovered she’s happily married and enjoying motherhood. Seeing her lifted my spirits today because I’ve known her since she was a baby, and to see a young mother now, pulled at my heartstrings. She did mention that I may be getting a call from her because they’re looking at buying a larger home in near future.
Tonight’s one-liner is: Every man is guilty of the good he did not do.
