Grandma Is Here

There are more fools in the world than there are people.

Heinrich Heine
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So yesterday URLAI, after careful analysis of my journal, which lasted about 5 seconds, determined that "vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 66-100 years old. Her writing style is personal and happy most of the time." Well they got the age range right and I hope that I am happy most of the time, but they messed up just a little bit about the gender. It reminds me that somewhere on the Internet it lists me as "the actress who played Gus."

Furthermore they claim that the overwhelming number of readers to my blog are old females. Take that Ken, Mark, Bill, Charles, George, Stuart, Bruce, Marty, Patrick, David (if I left out your name don't fuss).

So now I know who I am, at last, a sweet old lady who writes happy little personal entries in her journal. Just call me Granny.

The great lesson here is how absurd it is to try to categorize people, to put labels on folks, to standardize and create sameness. Even a bunch of ferns in a field are slightly different from each other and we are much more intensely complicated than ferns.

What's even worse is that when a person has difficulty understanding himself (and who doesn't) the label very often prompts him to behave in a certain way because those around him wearing the same label are behaving that way. After all, it's the courteous thing to do, they say.

I have suffered the abuse of having teachers, critics and others describe me to myself and the world in simple pithy statements of character and opinion. If I try to rebut, my remarks are met with a smirk. Everyone thinks they can figure other people out in an instant by making a quick comparison. Well "comparisons are odorous" as Shakespeare said. It's foolishness.

While it is a good thing to be proud of one's heritage and ancestry, I'm for removing the political, religious, ethnic and national labels from people and letting their true character shine, unobstructed and unfettered to any preconceived notions, good or bad, of their traditions and propensities.

I realize that this attitude comes from my Beatnik days and a lot of people don't agree with me. That's okay. But I still feel having to put down on a form your race, age, gender, religion, national origin and (soon probably) your sexual preference in order to apply for something is a moral cobweb.

I remain faithfully yours, the old lady who writes Vagabond Journeys.
DB
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 8 responses so far. Summer is about to close her gates. Get with it. Don’t be left out in the heat.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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