September 5, 2024
Today is a fasting Thursday. This blog, intentionally funny, was written before in my socializing days. Today I am in blessed solitude. I had a sudden insight: I use my sense of humor to keep people away, distance myself. Quite the opposite of what I thought, my whole life. Here goes,
Yes indeed – that was what came to mind one morning. Looked it up and such a jewel and so we will talk about that this morning. My life in absolute crisis but nothing can be resolved today, this Tuesday. Not good news – to get it out of the way. Yesterday I had a post traumatic stress attack (again) – it went away but then later in the day got what seemed to be a systemic allergy attack with massive itching on my head and neck. I LOVE this hotel!! Ran down to Lex Spa in absolute fear. Amy scooped me up – we went to duty manager, forms were filled out (of course) then went by Amy’s car (not wheel chair) across the street to conveniently located clinic. FANTASTIC emergency room care – no waiting, great courtesy, efficient and laughs actually. Was seen immediately – chose to get a bum shot of antihistamine and then drugs. Taking the drugs but residual problems with my face – right hand side. Will wait until I have taken the course of medicine before going for a follow up appointment. I am terrified but now that will not help anything so joking with King Ong on Messages. He Is SO funny.
But jokes help in a time of terrible stress – and now I have some which I will share. These jokes emerged from a Google search of funny thing happened on the way to the forum.
Here goes:
Just think if this became a fashion, these days one could go around freeing hostages.
Pseudolus, people do not go around freeing slaves every day.
Pseudolus: Be the the first, Start a fashion
This joke has to be one of my most favorites and is on topic, consistent with Family Planning in Islam.
Domina: That breeder woman, has she been thrown a mate yet?
Hysterium: Alas, she refuses just any slave. She demands to choose.
Senex: Choose? She’ll breed and like it, like everyone. Well almost everyone.
And this one, who is the theme of all those bothersome individuals who take no responsibility for their plight in life playing the victim role.
Hysterium: I love to grovel.
Often think that many of the people who have littered my life would have said and done. This is what I often think that many people that litter my life would have said, or should say.
Hysterium: Rather than let you down, I would die.
There are two reasons why these individuals are so much a rarity, scarcely ever to be found these days.
Pseudolus: An honest virgin! What a terrible combination!
We are now going to get serious for a while and speak of honesty. As usual Wikipedia is there for us.
Honesty or truthfulness is a facet of moral character that connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straightforwardness (including straightforwardness of conduct: earnestness), along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Honesty also involves being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.
A reputation for honesty is denoted by terms like reputability and trustworthiness. Honesty about one’s future conduct, loyalties, or commitments is called accountability, reliability, dependability, or conscientiousness. Someone who goes out of their way to tell possibly unwelcome truths extends honesty into the region of candor or frankness.
Honesty is valued in many ethnic and religious cultures.[1] “Honesty is the best policy” is a proverb of Edwin Sandys, while the quote “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, as used in a letter to Nathaniel Macon.[2] April 30 is national Honesty Day in the United States.
There is not citation to US National Honesty Day, so impossible to verify this incongruous holiday. My goodness, I lived in the United States for fifty years. That is not a celebrated holiday there – wheres, of course, April Fools Day is widely revered.
Many of the world’s great thinkers value honesty. Examples are provided.
William Shakespeare described honesty as an attribute people leave behind when he wrote that “no legacy is so rich as honesty” in act 3, scene 5 of “All’s Well that Ends Well.”[3]
Tolstoy thought that honesty was revolutionary: “No feats of heroism are needed to achieve the greatest and most important changes in the existence of humanity…. it is only needful that each individual should say what he really feels or thinks, or at least that he should not say what he does not think.”[4]
Ponder that “at least an individual would not say what he does not think.” If that were a widespread practice there would be scarcely any media cluttering out lives – neither social not traditional media. Do ponder the repercussions of this wisdom.
The 18th century enlightenment philosopher William Wollaston argued that all religion ultimately reduces to ethics and all ethics reduces to honesty (The Religion of Nature Delineated, 1722). “[E]very intelligent, active, and free being should so behave himself, as by no act to contradict truth; …treat every thing as being what it is.” All else would follow from that.
Reading this next paragraph gave me something to think about, perhaps to quote the title of a famous TV program, I should, curb my enthusiasm. I have a tendency to do this, commentating upon the inane and sometimes rather inflammatory words found on guest’s t-shirts. This practice has been stopped, perhaps more about that later.
Others noted, however, that “too much honesty might be seen as undisciplined openness”.[5] For example, individuals may be perceived as being “too honest” if they honestly express the negative opinions of others, either without having been asked their opinion, or having been asked in a circumstance where the response would be trivial.
If you really want to get serious about the subject of honesty, do some research on your own and all, this list will be helpful, all topics discussed by Wikipedia .
- Authenticity (philosophy) – Concept in existential psychology and philosophy
- Good faith – Intention to be fair, open, and honest
- Integrity – Moral virtue and practice
- Lie – Intentionally false statement made to deceive
- Morality – Differentiation between right and wrong
- Parrhesia – In rhetoric, the obligation to speak candidly
- Radical honesty – Complete honesty devoid of any kind of deception
- Sincerity – The virtue of honest and genuine communication
- Spin (propaganda) – Form of propaganda in public relations and politics
- Trust – Assumption of and reliance on the honesty of another party
- Truth – Being in accord with fact or reality.
Gentle reader, I must now be honest with you. This long discussion of honesty came about this fasting Thursday – there are many more jokes to be found – and will be found in subsequent blogs. My jocular mood vanished upon investigating the wisdom of honesty.
Came upon a previous discussion of honesty by typing honesty into the search engine of the blog. This April 22, 2024 blog found me leaving Jeddah, for Kohbar and then to Malaysia. I shall place myself in quotes.
Looking for guidance, remembering that something I had read spoke to this, I opened M. Alghazali’s Muslim’s Character, randomly found a chapter Performance of a Duty is Also a Trust.
“ This sense is also included in the meaning of trust that the man to whom responsibility has been entrusted should have the sincere inclination of satisfactorily of fulfilling those responsibilities and that he should devote all of his energies for doing justice to fulfill it. Undoubtedly it is a trust. Islam considers it worthy of honor that a man should be sincere in his work, should be keen on doing his job in a better way, and should be alive to safeguard that right of the people that are in his charge, for however ordinary that responsibility may be, a slight negligence is likely to cause undue harm to the whole community and society; and the germs of corruption and mischief enter the body politic. Dishonesty in performing official duties causes various moral disease in the society. It causes great harm to the religion, to the Muslim public and to the country. This sin, and its punishment and its evil appear in different forms. The Messenger of Allah has said: On the day of Judgment when Allah will gather all the people, past and present, a flag will be fixed for every deceiver, by which he will be recognized. So it will be said that this is a group of such and such deceivers.” (Bukhara) In another tradition it is stated: “There will be a flag near the head of every deceiver which he will rise in proportion to his deceit. Listen, there is none worse deceiver than the Amir who deceives the public. (Muslim) In other words there will be none more deceitful and deserving of bad consequences than the person who is made responsible for the affairs of men he sleeps peacefully while the public is undergoing hardships or facing destruction.” (Pgs. 76-78)
Is is not necessary for me at this moment to name the leaders of the countries of this world who are ‘sleeping peacefully’ while Palestine is undergoing hardships or facing destruction? There will be many flags being flown on that day over the heads of many a man and a woman. Flag production will have to go into high gear.
I have begun to speak of those who are those sleeping peacefully during while the public is undergoing destruction and shall continue to do so in the future. I looked to the Quran for guidance, finding it. Chapter 86: 13 Surely the Quran is a decisive word and this is not to be taken lightly. They are certainly devising evil plans but I am also planning. So bear with the disbelievers O Prophet. Let them be just for a little while.”
I am letting the disbelievers be just for a little while. In the meantime, photos of a sticker sent by Eureka (a nickname) yesterday, a photo of a guest and me, clad in an absolutely beautify Malaysian dress given to me by Amy. Then a photo of my attire yesterday – instead of speaking out against t-shirt messages I find offensive in that they support the genocide I have vowed to wear my Palestinian scarf on an almost daily basis. I had not done so before as protest is not necessary in this country – its government not a world power and the prime minister consistently speaks out against the hypocrisy of other nations. However, it is my Muslim obligation when I see wrong try to change it either with your tongue if nor try to change it with your hand, then last of all with your heart, that being the least favored. This instruction was sent to a Saudi man who is strenuously objecting to my speaking out about his country and its rulers. I ended my WhatsApp message in the following fashion. “If you see something wrong try to change it with your hand, if not try to change it with your tongue. I have hands that can type and a tongue that speaks through my hands. Then last with your heart. I have one of those too, But then oops – they lawyer in me emerged and I said: DO YOU? Probably should not have said that. Once a lawyer always a lawyer unfortunately.
