That is adult male bovine excrement.
Dude, you can use AMBE on me - I'll get the reference!
Allow me to clear a few things up. I am no more intelligent, no better educated, no more qualified to offer an unsupported opinion and no better looking than you. (I've never actually seen you, but trust me on that last.)
What I am is a teacher by nature. Had I followed my initial life plans I would be doing that for a living. It is providential that I did not because I wouldn't last long in the world of academia. I think too much. But, as usual, I digress. I spent twenty years as an NCO (whose primary function is to train people), thirty years as a parent (whose primary function is to serve as the butt of teenage jokes, but secondarily to teach kids), and numerous years as a gospel teacher of adults, young men and women, and new members/investigators of our church. It really is a simple part of my being to go around teaching stuff. It turns out I'm pretty good at it too. It's a good thing. Yay me.
Except that there is this thing about "right time and place." The tendency to teach is generally positive, until it is foisted upon people who: 1) didn't ask for it; 2) don't need it; and, 3) don't wanna hear it! I do that. A lot. I keep bandages handy.
You see, you inferred a reasonable but nevertheless erroneous intention to my preceding diatribes, and you best described the gist of it as my pointing out that you were a "poor" student. In fact I only explicitly suggested in my first post (IIRC) that the disconnect between you and BSB
COULD be a result of your being a poor student (as a contrast to your implication that he was a bad teacher) or that it could also be just a difference of personality between the two of you. It is perfectly logical that you might take that (coupled with the several analytical points I made in the ensuing discussion about my perception of your statements) as sort of saying "you COULD (wink, wink) be a poor student." In other words, I was convinced you WERE a poor student but I didn't want to just come out and SAY it, fer goshsakes. In fact, there was an underlying notion in that statement, but it was "it COULD (wink, wink) be just a difference of personalities." I was really only pointing out that there were several possible reasons for the disconnect, and I included the one I thought it was - but it was the last, not the second. Further, I explicitly said that I think you were not able to learn (or words to that effect) ON THIS ISSUE. I was very careful to include those words, so as to avoid the appearance that I was saying you couldn't be taught, period. Unfortunately, I didn't put them in caps or otherwise emphasize them - but OH you shoulda heard them in my head! The inflection was just perfect. You couldn't have missed it. Honest.
Now even just making such a claim ON THIS ISSUE can still be pretty damn insulting. I want to be honest here, so I'll piss you off a little more and say I do still believe that part of the disconnect comes from your approach. I'm not saying that to add fuel to the fire, but because I don't want you to think I'm backpedaling or trying to change my meaning. We've had this kind of argument before and rather than try to hash through the trash again I'd just as soon give you a stimulating lesson on why the universe is, in fact, entirely composed of fishsticks. (What is the sound of one fin slapping?) But it is easy to infer that I intended to insult you or accuse you when I said "You're approaching this from the wrong direction." Now I know that technically that statement is in fact insulting and accusatory (though I hope you will agree it is less of the first). But what I am trying to say is that I was NOT trying to insult you, challenge you or accuse you but rather (as is my nature) to teach you.
Now you might well ask "Who the hell are you to teach me?" You might, but I hope you don't, because I haven't got the slightest idea - and it gets all awkward when I don't have longwinded stuff to drown out the crickets. It is not my place to instruct anyone here. I am not a professional teacher. I am not a subject-matter expert (as BSB is in this case) except for LDS or military matters to some degree. More importantly, I haven't got the slightest degree of training in counseling, psychology, psychiatry or making our interpersonal relationships a world of flowers and rainbows. Having dabbled in it with this thread I appear to have rather brought forth crabgrass and acid rain. It is not my PLACE to teach. It is, however, my nature. I do it without thinking (now THERE's an opening for ya) and without malice. I produce teachy-like posts with the same easy and natural effort that adult male bovine critters produce excrement - and often with the same result. Now this can sometimes be thought of as arrogant, egotistical and just plain rude. Let me respond to that.
(. . . sounds of crickets chirping . . .)
Wow, that was awkward. Anyway where was I? Oh yes, arrogant, egotistical . . . I mean NO. No, that's not the case at ALL. While it may SEEM to be those things it is really just my way of being benevolent, kind and - wait, I just stepped in something. Stupid bulls. Why don't they go back to Chicago?
Here's the thing. I really just saw a situation in front of me where I kinda felt I could help cut past what I saw as a simple case of two clashing perspectives and I thought you might welcome my magnanimous gesture of teaching. I just saw you lighting up with enlightenment (is that redundant?) and saying "Wow, Poochie ol' pal I totally get it now. Shucks, I wanna become a Buddhist AND a Mormon. I wanna write a book called 'Zen and the Art of Multiple Marriages!' Yessir, I don't know HOW I ever got along without you! You sure are full of wisdom!" Instead it turns out you think I'm full of something else, but that's really not the ca . . . FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD I CAN
NOT GET THIS STUFF OFF OF MY SHOE!!!!
Gist is this. I'm sorry. I was presumptuous to get involved and pretentious to think I could teach you. My bad.
You got a napkin on ya?