Confessions of a Yes-But Junkie

During the cold months past, I have been lurking for free on Substack.com, exploring information and opinions about anything and everything (science, climate, economics, philosophy, politics, religion...), and leaving clever comments to set things straight, yes-butting the ignorant toward enlightenment. 

Yesterday I read The Church Paul Described Terrifies Modern Pastors with a quote from First Corinthians 14: “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.”  

Interesting. Church with no pastor, everyone bringing what they can for the benefit of the group.

Yes, I see the genius of that, worshipers as participants rather than audience. Reminds me of God as Holy Spirit rather than law giver and judge. But how would this distributed divinity work in a large congregation? 

OK, anybody who has something inspiring to tell us, line up at the microphone. And speak up when it's your turn.

Someone has to give the orders, and the rest of us have to follow their lead. And somebody has to shut down the nutter who interrupts the other speakers with a "yes-but" argument. 

Pastor: Listen. Wait your turn.

Yes, like God silenced Paul with a stroke until he changed his mind about Jesus. But maybe that's just me being stupid.

To explore that thought further, I searched Substack for 'stupid' and found Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity, We Have More To Fear From Stupid People Than From Evil Ones.

Interesting. I thought about yes-butting that one with a clever comment like:

yes stupid is dangerous, but stupid plus evil would be worse and clever plus evil would be as bad as it gets. 

I was going to illustrate that with examples and body count statistics, but something stopped me from publishing. Funny thing about yes-butting, nobody likes a wise guy. Sometimes a wise guy should just yes-but himself.

Yes, Substack has been rekindling the teacher in me, but not your favourite teacher. 

Yes, I thought I had retired, but I'm still in school, sometimes teaching and sometimes being taught. 

Yes, I know, it's stupid to waste time in a yes-but rut, arguing with faceless phantoms on Substack. But I needed something to do when the snow was on the ground. Sorry.

Enough of that. I deleted my Substack account. I'm going to go dig the garden.

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Physical activity helped a bit. For the past hour, I yes-butted along the fence while the shovel did it's thing. Yes, I scattered a mix of flower seed into the dirt. And (not but) maybe something nice will come of that.

Socrates had it right when he said the wise man knows he is a fool. So today there are two of me here setting each other straight on a lovely spring day while we finish this note. 

Now that we have confessed our stupidity, what do we say to a nap? Yes?

zzzz ZZZZZZZ 

zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz