Thursday, May 30, 2013

Crazy People

There has been so much tiresome nonsense written in various forums recently about the whole "Let's make the game of Laser sailing better by giving all of our money to the lawyers and suing each other because a Laser isn't really a Laser any more it's really a Torch... or something" saga.

People who aren't class members trying to tell us class members how we should run our class.

People who admit they aren't lawyers trying to pontificate about complex legal matters.

People who don't even know their breach from their breech.



For the record this is a breach. It is all about when something or somebody breaks something. Like a contract for example.




On the other hand, this is a breech. It means the back end of something. You wear breeches to cover your breech.



If someone writes about "breech of contract" they are talking out of their breech.

But I really should be more charitable and stop making fun of my fellow sailors. God knows I've written more than my fair share of ill-informed utter nonsense in my time on this blog. So apologies to anyone who is offended by what's written above.



It is hard to find real words of wisdom on the topic. But here are a few...

1. A very wise man said recently on Sailing Anarchy what I felt like saying myself to some of the forum posters...

Are you going sailing this evening or are you just going to continue wasting your time trying to write your endless one sided drivel describing other people's business affairs about which your information is insufficient to form an opinion ?


2. Bertrand Russell knew a thing or two about Laser sailors and Internet forums too, when he said...

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. 


3. But I think that well-known Laser sailor Jerry Garcia summed up best how most Laser sailors feel...

The whole thing is remembering, this is who we are.  
Remember who we are?  
We are in reality a group of misfits, crazy people, who have voluntarily come together to work this stuff out and do the best we can and try to be as fair as we possibly can with each other, and just struggle through life. 


We crazy people who sail Lasers may not all be class members but we all care about the future of the game. Our passion for the game may lead some of us misfits to take sides in this dispute, even though we haven't even heard the arguments from every side yet. But come what may, we will somehow work this stuff out and find a way to carry on playing our game of racing plastic ironing boards.

We will survive.




19 comments:

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

You already settled what a Torch is. Are you beating the corpse of this dead horse beyond recognition?

Keep Reaching said...

This is getting quite Zen. I like it.

It reminds me a bit of Candide's final answer to Pangloss in the garden.

Tillerman said...

This torch isn't dead. It hasn't even been born yet. Maybe it never will be born.

Tillerman said...

Wow. Never thought of that.

I guess I am taking a philosophical view and a long term view of all this. Many seem to want to dive into the legal minutiae and others seem to be compelled to tell us who is "wrong" and who is "right" as if the situations is so simple it could be thought of in such black and white terms.

I would like to get my head around what's going to happen after the legal cases are all decided and how we are all going to get along and keep our local Laser sailing scene at least as good as it is now.

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

Rename it the 'Flameout'?

Genie said...

KR, could you illuminate us as to what was Candide's final answer to Pangloss (in the final garden?) and how it translates to Zen.

Tillerman said...

I can't remember exactly but I think it was something to do with digging. Digging might have been a metaphor for Laser sailing. I don't know. I'm not good at metaphors.

Have you ever read "Zen and the Art of Cultivating a Garden"? Brilliant book.

Genie said...

Tillerman, I was asking Keep Reaching. I was interested in what his answer was.

Tillerman said...

I know. But don't you think wrong answers are always more interesting than correct answers? It's a Zen thing.

Genie said...

I'm just interested in KR's answer to this. I am not looking for right or wrong...just his answer.

Anonymous said...

I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?

Keep Reaching said...

It is probably a mixed metaphor or some other sort of answer that would get a rap on the knuckles from a philosophy prof. Pangloss was always trying to prove that the most abominable things were really for the best and finally Candide just says (I am paraphrasing wildly) "Cut the crap - the only thing we have to is cultivate our garden.

Does it have anything to do with Zen? Probably not. But I liked Tillerman's back to basics philosophical move - which I characterised as Zen, in the popular sense.

I see that Anonymous is apparently equating Candide's answer as suggesting we do nothing. I ccertainly don't read it that way.

Genie said...

Hold on to your dream, Tillerman. It will still be there when the storm clears. Yes, some of the tripe that's being written is insulting, to say the least, and you have to assume that some of these people have very low individual values. There is a huge magnifying glass on the laser community at present and you are seeing acting out that normally would be hidden.
But, Tillerman, because you are fretting about the future and things out of your immediate control, the Buddha Dharma is going to strip you of your saffron robes and pack you off to meditate on a single grain of rice for several hours!

Genie said...

Anon, this is hilarious!

Joni said...

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Rudyard said...

Gardens are not made by singing
“Oh how beautiful”
and sitting in the shade.

Nathaniel said...

Happiness is a butterfly,
which, when pursued,
is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you will sit down quietly,
may alight upon you.

Genie said...

Thanks, Rudy, for pointing us towards that beautiful poem. I then reread Kipling's "If...." and that has got to be one of the best poems ever.

MJ said...

JJJEEERRRRRRYYY!!!

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