Large Fierce Mammal

In last week’s edition of Worldly Wisdom Wednesday, I spoke of the The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse, and identified it as but a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners. Moving forward from there, let’s dig a little deeper.

Why are Manners important? Because they garner approval from society, as well as from individual members of it, and in this they must be sincerely expressed because for them to be falsely so is the pinnacle of falsehood. To be steadfast and forthright is respected. To be found to have been simply posturing is most decidedly not. In this, we can see that just as The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse is a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners, Manners are in turn a subset of the larger Discipline called Communication.

Creatures in Nature express themselves in predictable ways so that others of their kind, as well as others of unlike kind who may be considered interested parties, may know their intentions. This is in keeping with the Way of the Wild, as also is subterfuge to confound understanding of intention. Man is by no means the only animal capable of subterfuge, but he has demonstrated an interesting uniqueness in developing the ability for an individual member of the species to successfully confound its own understandings of its own intentions.

As often as not, this phenomenon manifests itself out of a motivation that is not intrinsically bad. When what is and what one wants to be are deemed to be unacceptably different, therein lies a motivation to merge the two in favour of the latter, and this is in keeping with the Way of the Wild. Where trouble ensues is when the want fails to take into account what is, and the utmost folly grows from refusal to believe that what is actually is at all, accepting in its stead only that which feeds the want. Alas, you will never find a folly so profound as to be in lack of gurus preaching its “truth”.

This affects, and afflicts, Human relationships with each other and everything else. Even those things that are what they are because we made them so. That having been said, I’ll direct you from here – not for the first, and certainly not for the last time – to a consideration of that wondrous thing that is the True understanding between Human and Dog. In this lies a shining example of what I’m talking about.

My burden in this profound lesson is lightened thanks in totality to an article published today by our Esteemed Friend Silvia Jay to her Mindful Leadership blog. We’ve referred to and quoted Silvia’s Wisdom before, she often honours us with her insights, and both Mrs. LFM and I feel this latest piece to be exceptionally insightful. Read it here and meet us back here next week. As always, please comment!