A Casual Running Down of Someone Behind Their Back

Gossip:  Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

Ah, I'm calling bullshit on truth.  It's overrated.  The real deal is making myself feel better at someone else's expense.  A great way to accomplish this is to present information about the other person in a way that makes them look smaller while flatly stating that this is something that I never do.  Facts are not required.

One of my rules in life is to never, ever say anything about another person that I wouldn't say with that person present.  I never, ever want to be in a position where someone confronts me about something I may have said about them.  If I say it I'll say it with you there or I won't say it.  I'm damn good at this but I'm not perfect.

I'm going to diverge for a minute to talk about the Sikhs.  Did you know this is the fifth or sixth largest religion in the world?  During the global pandemic Sikh churches, which serve millions of free meals every day all across the world, have really stepped in to try to alleviate the food insecurity that many people are experiencing.  (Ed. Note:  I love the phrase "food insecurity," a sanitized euphemism for "I'm not getting enough to eat.")  

One of my most memorable experiences during our grueling month in India was a visit to a huge Sikh church during a meal time.  It was, to my Western eyes, an apocalyptic scene: walking barefoot across a wet floor, worried about stepping on something sharp and cutting my foot which would become infected with a weird subcontinent disease leading to amputation, the room filled with steam pouring from massive cooking pots, men who looked like cardiologists walking between rows of sitting people, lading out food to people who looked to be homeless who were wedged in between large families.  We didn't eat there - probably wary of the potential of hygiene problems with our Western bellies - but both of us were incredibly moved at the democracy on display.

The Sikh turban, by the way, isn't a religious symbol or an honorific but simply a symbol of equality.

I'm not dialed into the nuances of Sikhism but I think we need some more of what they got.

Anyway, one of my oldest, dearest, bestest friends in the world and I get into these little intellectual tiffs on a regular basis.  He's an extrovert and can be blunt sometimes and I'm an introvert who has a tendency to be on the self-righteous side of the street.  As a perfect human specimen I have an excuse - I'm not sure what his rationale would be.  I perceive that he's pretty attached to the carnal world and I perceive this causes him some problems and I perceive that my perception is often bullshit, a fact that never slows me down from perceiving your faults.  I've made suggestions over the years promoting meditation and reading as a way that he might enlarge his spiritual life and escape from some of the problems that being too attached to this world can cause, implying, of course, that he could some day become a massive spiritual giant like someone we all know.

I occasionally find it difficult for me to keep this opinion to myself.  This is none of my business and I have no idea what might or might not work for anyone else and this from a dude who is no one's example of a shining beacon on a holy mount in a distant land.

I shouldn't do this.  Ever.