1. People who don't like motorcycles-- I was attracted to them as a little kid. It's probably genetic.People have been riding horses for thousands of years. They have sat upon them the same way you sit on a motorcycle. After thousands of years , I'm sure there is a genetic component to have a mode of transportation between your legs. I use to love horses and rode extensively as a young man. The problem with horses is that you have to saddle and bridle them. When finished riding, you have to
remove the saddle and bridle and store them then you have to curry the horse down and feed it. It's a damn chore. With a motorcycle , I just park it and forget it. Also, if Carmen and I had to ride one horse to Alaska like we did my Harley, we would still be riding and probably would have gone through 3 or 4 horses. Believe me. There's nothing more fun than being on an open back road through mountains
on a motorcycle.
2. People who do not like to travel----To me the world has always been an oyster. It's like one giant candy store where you never run out of new types of candy to taste. Although I have a lot of formal education, the travels that I have done in my life and still do have educated me in a way that college could never do. We live on a little ball suspended in space. This little ball is so different depending upon the location. Different people, different languages, different food, different culture, different architecture and different histories. I guess some of us are born with a driving innate curiosity about this little globe and it's surface contents. I was fortunate to have been born with this drive and can say I'm a better person for it. It teaches one tolerance and understanding of your fellow globe occupant. Provincial, I'm not.
Mark Twain said it best when he wrote, "It liberates the dullard to travel--you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn,masterminded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad,wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
3. Religions-----I've never understood religious people. I have never been religious since a little boy and frankly, I've never believed in some invisible guy in the sky that could intervene in my life. I realize that the culture one is born in is the big determinant of how one thinks. But, I never understood how rational thinking people could not overcome these superstitions. I'm not just talking about Christianity, but all religions contemporary or in the past. We live in modern times where carbon dating is done and archeologists continue to make discoveries about our ancestors. Modern genetic studies reflects a continuous genetic map of how we crawled out of the African region. How can a rational person believe that some God blew into a piece of dirt and made man and then yanked a rib from him and made women. PS We still have the same number of ribs on either side. Have can you read the Bible and not understand that these were the writings of ancient Arab scribes who had no concept of modernity as we do? Can't people accept the fact that no one knows why or how life forms are on this planet without making up fantasy reasons?
It's not hard to say these few words of "I don't know." What is the need for having a make believe "Father?" We all had real fathers and that's enough.
4. Forgiveness---I've never understood people who don't forgive others for perceived slights. I've had close friends who have stabbed me in the back in business and otherwise. I've forgiven them. Many, I still maintain a friendship with. At least the ones still alive. At my age, many have passed on. I try not to
hold grudges as I'm more the victim than they are. I admit it is hard to forgive, but realized in later life that I was doing more damage to myself by holding onto those feelings. I learned to let 'em go.
5. People who get personal and mad when discussing a subject----This, I've never understood. I can sit and argue and discuss my position from daylight to dark and will never get personal with the one I'm in disagreement with. I don't dislike a person who doesn't agree with me on politics or any other subject. I dislike them when they get personal and mad. There are some people I have disagreed with strongly in my life yet we've remained friends. I treasure them. They will stick to the subject and we can but heads all night over drinks and neither of us will get mad. Those people are few and far between that can discuss on an academic level in a civil
manner. They don't say "aww shit. You don't know what you're talking about." They say this because they don't have the experience or intellectual level to give any other reply. I try to avoid them in my old age as much as possible, but since I'm a highly social person and go enjoy the social life in bistros, I have run into them occasionally. It also depends upon the level of education of the bar patrons. I almost never run across those types of people in Jinja where I go 2 or 3 times a week here in Albuquerque. I've enjoyed tremendous mind soaring conversations and have learned much. Also tremendous discussions where we disagree and don't get personal and are still friends. It's a rare bistro for sure.
6. People with a lack of curiosity about things-----To me everything is a subject of inquiry and observation. You may think I'm crazy when I've posted picture and video of the huge ant pile next to my Albuquerque place. These are very large black ants a half inch long that do not bite. I can observe them for an hour at a time. I learned that they will carry one who has died to the same burial location some 15 feet away.
I've watched them cooperate in the moving of a fairly large rock. I normally feed them once a day with some piece of fruit and watch them gratefully eat it. They crawl on my shoes and ankles and I gingerly pick them off. Believe me, they are intelligent. It's just we cannot communicate with them. I can stare at the hummingbird's behavior for hours at a time on my balcony. The different species have predictable diferent behaviour. I've driven people all over the Western states in my car showing them highlights of areas. I've noticed that many of the people don't hardly ever look out the window , but instead stare straight ahead as if fixated on the road. They don't observe anything and after the trip cannot describe what they have seen. One time I drove a very close friend of mine to Brownsville, Tx Louisiana and we were returning when I inadvertently went to the right on Hwy 77 where there is a Y intersection about 8 miles from downtown Corpus Christi, Tx. I had gone about four miles when I realized my mistake and said to my friend, what the hell, you've never seen Corpus and the ocean front let's just go and I'll show it to you. His reply---"Shit, you see one city, you've seen them all." I said OK and wheeled the car around. What can you say to uncurious people like him? He also is the
type that stares straight ahead. I'm still vitally interested in people. They , to me, are the most interesting life forms on earth. I try to read them quickly and am fairly good at it due to being a lifelong salesman. I don't get fooled very much unless the persona has a latent mental or emotional illness which cause them to change in a millisecond. Believe me, there are a lot of them out there who seem normal. I have visited all of the many Indian ruins here in New Mexico. Many are way out of the way. I revisit many also and just sit on one of their stone structures
and imagine what kind of life went on in these ancient pueblos. I have read extensively on the Anasazi Indians which is the generic term for all the ancient Indians that inhabited the area of New Mexico, Eastern Arizona and Southern Colorado. They are the ones that were not nomadic like the plains Indians and built many cities and cave dwelling. Some of their Pueblos had as many as 3,000 rooms and up to four stories in height. I'm curious about any and everthing.
7. People who do not read and learn thoughout life---This has always been a puzzle to me. I suppose it goes to what I've written above. Lack of curiosity of how man has arrived to the point of where he is today. I read voraciously out of a desire to learn about any and everything. No, I don't read fiction. I read to learn about medicine, physics, science, sociology, history, politics, traveling, finances, etc. I want to know about what smarter people than I know so I can be a little smarter. Education and learning is a lifelong process. It doesn't stop in high school or the university where you get a smattering of knowledge. No, it is a continual process until you die. Most people come to an abrupt halt in leaning after their formal education.
Let's say you have a degree in engineering or geology. Well, you might know about those subjects, yet have almost no knowledge outside your baliwick. This is the rule
rather than the exception. In order to fill in your knowledge, then you must read and read about other areas of knowledge to make yourself a whole being. Then, I've known people who graduated from college, but the college did not go through them. They just about forgot every thing they were supposed to have learned the day after
graduation. There are many of those walking about also. Then, I've known individuals who dropped out of high school,say in the 10 grade, who have self educated themselves with more reasoning powers and knowledge than some PHDs.I'm enthralled with these types of people. Yes, learning is a life long endeavor.
8. People who do not like to be out in nature--I can't figure this one out either. I love to be out in the deep woods, mountains and desert. I hike and mountain bike almost daily when I'm in Albuquerque. I seldom see people up on the trails overlooking the metro area of Albuquerque which is a million people. I see deer, elk, snakes, Bob White quail, coyotes and all sorts of other animals and birds up in these mountain trails. I sit and wonder as I look down upon the city and why aren't there more people up here enjoying the natural beauty. Beats the hell out of me.
9. People who do not like boating. ----I've always had some sort of boat from a young kid at 10yrs. old when I had a 14ft. Thompson wood boat and a 5hp Royal outboard. I've had all sorts of boats since then. I had a Rhodes 19 sailboatin New Orleans which I sailed on Lake Ponchartrain as a single man. I had a 17ft Starcraft with a 90hp Evinrude in New Orleans after I married. When I moved to Brownsville, Tx, I immediately bought a used 23ft open console powered by an inline 6 cyl.Volvo engine and outdrive. I would take this craft out as far as 50 miles into gulf by myself and troll. Later on, I sold it and bought a 35ft. Pearson sailboat and sailed it many years. In Florida, I've had many boats culminating with my 35 Chaparral. I've always loved to be out on the water. It's a great escape from the maddening crowd. I don't understand people who do not love the water and the ocean. I can sit on my dock and just stare at the water. I do this often just before sundown. Something in my genes I suppose.
10. People who do not dance or sing.----Thankfully I'm married to a lady who would rather dance than go out and buy a bunch of bric a brac crap and who doesn't care for malls. We love to dance and have done it all over the world and will continue to do it until we are physically unable if that ever occurrs. Dancing is therapy. It puts your brain into a zone where the constant chattering of one's mind completely stops. It has the added benefit of exercise. As to singing, I love it even though my singing voice has really deteriorated badly. I don't care. I do it for me as some sorta therapy which I don't understand. I know that most people are self concious about singing and dancing. I don't understand that though. Who cares how you sing or dance? You do if for yourself as a therapeutic stress reliever. It works for us.
"To write is to think, and to write well is to think well," David McCullough
Bob White
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