So, I’m on-site today awaiting a courier, as often happens, and things being what they are today that means standing by the road if you want a smoke.
So I’m stood there smoking away, and this little silver peugeot turns up, young guy and young lass, arguing, she’s driving, he gets out, still arguing, well fuck you then, he slams the door shut, she drives off… he pats his pockets, pulls out his smokes, pats his pockets some more… fuuuuuck… looks at me.. “Got a light mate?” he asks.
I’m just grinning at him as I hand him the zippo, so before you know it he is telling me the story, doesn’t really matter what it is, it is utterly predictable, pwincess is gas-lighting and shit-testing him.
My courier still hasn’t turned up, and he still doesn’t feel calm enough to walk the mile to their home, so we both smoke some more.
He says to me how are you supposed to make all these choices all the time, and make the right ones all the time. It’s just too complex. Isn’t it.
I look at him for a minute, say no, it’s really very very very simple boy, and I could tell you, but be really sure you want to hear the answer, because you will either hear it and change your life, or ignore it and cement yourself into the life you have forever.
You choose.
I think if the skies hadn’t opened then and we moved back under the eaves, he’d have chosen to walk, but they did, and he didn’t, and so he asked me.
Well, it’s like this, there are beliefs, and there are facts. Beliefs and facts may be about the same thing, such as global warming, and beliefs and facts can also agree about the same thing, but they don’t have to.
Normally what happens is a person doesn’t have a fact, they just have a belief. Sometimes they think they have a fact, but it is really just a belief.
Your problem boy, is you are making decisions based upon things that are not facts, you’re either making decisions on a belief, because you do not have a fact, or on a belief, that contradicts a fact… sometimes, on very rare occasions, you will make a decision based upon a belief that is supported by a fact, but you’re still wrong, because you made the decision based upon the belief, not the fact.
He was hearing me, but not comprehending.
I gesture outwards, is it raining? See, that’s a fact, because the next random person to walk down the road will say “it’s raining” if someone 100 miles away rings them on their mobile and asks what the weather is… now say that person 100 miles away asks the random person walking down the road if you love the chick who just drove off in the silver pug, or if she loves you, what are they going to answer?
He says they won’t know, will they, how can they know.
There you go, it’s not a fact is it, it’s not something someone else can touch or feel, it doesn’t make their clothes wet or their ears cold, it’s a feeling, a belief… the FACT is you chose to part company with her and get out of the car, and the FACT is she chose to drive away, the random person walking down the road would see THAT, and be able to report it to the person 100 miles away on the phone.
He’s quiet for a minute, we both spark up another smoke, he tells me that is all well and good, but if he took that approach, he’d turn around and walk THAT way and not look back, and not that way 1 mile to the home he shared with her.
I feel a disposable bic lighter in my pocket when I put the zippo away, my fingers play with it for a few seconds, I pull it out and hand it to him, there you go boy, and sorry.
Thanks he says, but what are you sorry for.
I’m sorry for how you will feel on the day in the future when you recall this conversation with the random guy you met by the wind-farm and bummed a light from…
Thanks for the light, and the lighter, he says, and walks off in the same direction the little silver pug went.