Archive: Apr 13, 2024, 12:00 AM

I'd been contacted by a firm in Bahrain on 4-Apr, and finally decided to contact them back on Friday, 12-Apr. I won't offer more pertinent details at this point, for whether there's something worth telling at all now depends on them.

But I will offer some bits about the reflection that analysing, deciding, and acting on have led me to have.  

One aspect that surprised me: I seem to be willing to accord better intentions to individuals if said individuals are foreigners from certain countries and from certain types of institutions then equal "ranking" non-foreigners from similar, North-American-based or Western institutions. I see one as them offering me potential and opportunity and the other as seeing only a potential opportunity for them in me.  

The last is mostly true if a US firm within any financial/banking sphere. Anything "Wall Street" makes me cringe and recoil. Maybe lash out, too.

But there's no hard-and-fast rule that I'm aware of; instincts and non-tangibles based on personal experience appear to largely account for any variance, which may offer the reverse given a different reason altogether to consider 'which would be the best option'.  

Then there are those I'd never trust or wish to be associated with in any form whatsoever... The Nigerian Princes are among them, but only because they always seem so desperate to leave Nigeria, so, leaning on any "Nigerian" part like they do makes me think they're not serious as Princes; I like my royalty to be dedicated to their kingdom, thank you.

I was also contacted by UAE tech firm about entirely different matters, which I definitely should reply to; I hadn't as I'm always expecting the DMS&UY site to be forced down due to a lack of funds, yet, months later, I'm still here whilst having established that contact and adding my name to their "vendors list" may have helped in rectifying that.

I truly am an odd one. Perhaps far too caught up on correct principles and on good morals, always acting in concordance with my strict personal ethics and within my own moral framework?

If only I'd given more thought to my ethics and morals before becoming so attached to my framework, I'd surely have a more world-friendly and economically-functional take on "killing babies" and about what to do with those dreaded "others"?

As long as it's 'other' people's babies and kids, where's the problem, right?

And if I really were serious about earning my rightful place in the world, I'd scrap fluff-words like "people" and learn how to use "animals" properly instead whenever I'm dealing with such within a pertinent context.

Damn my parents! I blame them for those word choices I invariably seem to make.

Any hoot, related matters provided another instance that reminded me just how impossible it is for me to ever do things the "proper" and "expected" way, for which a "How To" or set template is almost always available. So many times, a voice in my head tells me I shouldn't... just follow the by-the-numbers cookie-cutter approach... But if I did that, then, I'm not being genuine, making "honesty" a secondary feature less desired than "expectations"? That definitely ain't right, leading to false presentation and unwanted representation on my side, and, possibly—and more than likely—on theirs as well.

Here's a post scriptum to my email, a formal business one sent to a person located in Bahrain; I added it because I felt a need to address one aspect, but felt that doing so brought me to a place that just isn't me, which gave me license for absurdity rather than simply avoiding any mention unless/until absolutely necessary: 

P.S. Times being what they are and cause for condemnation quickly found when so desired, I specify the following to avoid potential headaches only, doing so given your location: I’m willing to focus my efforts, but I’m not interested in betraying the West in any manner whatsoever for money; I’m just as equally uninterested in betraying any nation, or any religious, political, or cultural group for money. Except, maybe, that country with weird toenails and pubic-like curls to their hair… what‘s the name of that place?

If it’s on the tip of anyone’s tongue, that may not be a good sign. At all.

Honesty. True impartiality. A genuine attempt to understand. Hatred-free. Better steps leading to a true, lasting peace. These are things I will never betray, unless the amount to do so is so big I can then buy the world and set things right. Maybe get rid of those people who don’t like my music or cooking, while at it. Cursed be those people!

That was the email; the "formal" doc I'd attached offered similar moments...

All these formalities, they're always a firm slap in my face, for they act as a reminder that I seem to operate on a different plane of reality, one that's detached from the set formulisms put in place to gauge one's worth within said formulisms that operate per a set hierarchy, itself defined and dependent on set formulisms. If without them, then how is anyone to judge what's good or bad, right or wrong?

Thinking on that brought me back to my nine-year-old self and a second-grade art project I'd been chosen to create first, so the class would then have a model to go off of; I was almost always selected for such roles when artistic goals and imagination were the focus. One day, I wasn't... I had a mini identity crisis, age 10. 

We'd moved to Toronto from Montreal and, at that point in my story, I couldn't say with any degree of confidence that I spoke English, but neither could I longer claim total ignorance; I "got" the gist, not the details, but this facet doesn't explain my boneheadness, which is the appropriate label, in this case, I feel.

The project: Use your initials to create a colourful patterned overlay on a holder-box for notes that we first had to create.

Here's the thing: I somehow never caught the "your initials" part; I selected my letters based purely on a letter's aesthetics, per the font used to create the stencils from which we were to create our masters. O, Q, and R. The letters had zero meaning to me.

My initials being PL, or PDL for those who know me well, and PDGAJL for those who know me too well... I didn't even manage to hit one! When the teacher, Mr Cody, then used my model to show the rest of the class what to do, none of the kids understood why, then, did I use those letters. It took a few minutes for what people were saying to sink in and what had been meant by "initials", which sounds a lot like the French "initiales", though not so much like "yorreenētials" to a young Québécois with no English.

When it finally sunk in, I felt kinda foolish... pretended those letters had a meaning. Maybe I was making a gift for my mum; how do they know I'm not... so there. Also, in my defense, the teacher had placed much emphasis on "example", and I recall that having an impact on my choice.

For the rest of the year, students had a personalized holder-box that identified them. The one that identified no one was mine...

That reminds me of a speech I did for the annual competition we had, winners going on to the regional and then national competition. I'd discussed video games, mentioning a "pool" game in the speech, but referring to it as "billiards". Except, I didn't know how to pronounce that in English, and used the French pronunciation—it being a French word, after all—which sounds like "B Arr" in French, and nothing like the English "bill yards".

When I was done, a student raised his hand and asked me what "B-R" was. 

"Bee-har", I asked back, "where?" I hadn't a clue what he was referring to, getting caught on B and R without being able to link it to the French "billiard" that sounds like "B Arr".

"Yes, I wondered that, too," said another student. "You mention B-R a lot, and I hadn't a clue what you were saying."

The whole class wondered about that, too...

I finally clued in weeks later, upon hearing someone pronounce "billiards" the proper English way and reacting with "Oh, I thought it was pronounced Bee-harr."