Perhaps and Maybe….

After my posting yesterday I received a phone call from my dedicated regular reader who had drawn some inferences from my writing. Bless her for reading and even more for caring but “Let the reader beware!” I usually write to get something out of my system, to capture a thought or simply to clarify my own thinking about something because it works better when I see it in written form. Anything a reader can get out of that process is ‘gravy’ as they say.

I learned in grad school that tweedy English professors will deploy their powerful intellect and rapier-like wits over just about anything for the sheer joy of the ensuing discussion. I also discovered that using qualifying words covered my expansive rear and drove them to a scary place. A well-placed ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’ can defuse a lot of arguments a graduate student really doesn’t have time for.

I think, perhaps, I know a few things for sure but maybe I am mistaken. I am usually terrified by absolutists who know everything about everything and are never wrong about anything (See how this works?) because in my lifetime I have never met anyone who was always right. I’ve met a few who thought they were and those people usually left a trail of destruction behind them. As Fitzgerald commented about the Buchanans, “they go through life smashing things up.”

I don’t see a lot of ‘black and whites’ in the world but I am comfortable with the greys. Perhaps I am wrong but maybe I am right.