Monday, December 6, 2010

Whoa. That's deep.

I had another really interesting dream last night.  I can't remember it all, but here is what I remember....

I am on the Titanic.  (Yea, that Titanic.  Except there was no Jack, Rose or intense love story.  But there was an iceberg.)  Lucky for me, I was on first class. Unlucky for me, this all happened after the ship hit the iceberg.  I was at dinner with someone, I don't know who or why really, but he was a member of the crew and former military.  I guess the leak in the boat was so slow at this point and no one really thought it was going to sink that they decided to keep on as normal as possible.  Weird.  Anyway, during dinner the conversation turned to how one of the captains (or something) had slapped my dinner companion earlier that evening for something that did not involve my companion.  I was going on about the injustice of that action when some man at the table pointed out that "Isn't it his right to strike his subordinates?  If he thinks they have done wrong then they should be stricken."

My companion and myself were silent for a second then I leaned over and whispered in his ear "It's OK.  Tell him why he's wrong."  My companion then said "If you try to rule through fear, you get fearful men.  Fearful men do horrible thing out of their fear.  If you rule through justice, you get men of integrity."  After that I don't remember much except being cold.

Thanks to my narcolepsy, my dreams can be as deep as the ocean.  (Get it?  Aw, I am made of the funnies!)

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Premeditated Random Acts of Kindness (Or, why on earth do I think of these things? Please tell me I'm not the only one.)

Today I took the girls over to my mom's house to help decorate her Christmas tree.  While I was there, we had a really hefty snowfall.  I would say we got around 10cm or so.  I was not looking forward to coming home and shovelling out the driveway so, imagine my delight when I pulled up to the driveway and saw someone had snowblowed it!  YAY!  It was our neighbours.  It seems that I was the recipient of a Random Act of Kindness (RAK).

While I was shovelling the part of the driveway that's beside the house, I started to wonder; Was it really a Random Act of Kindness?  A true RAK to me is when someone decides spur-of-the-moment to do someone a kindness.  They had planned to go out and snowblow our driveway when it started snowing, so it was more of a Premeditated Random Act of Kindness.  But, does the Premeditation negate the Randomness of the Kindness?  If you decide in the morning you are going to pay for the coffee of the person in line behind you, the Act of Kindness is not Random to you, but it is Random to the person who in on the receiving end.  I have to admit, I am stumped as to whether those are PRAKs or RAKs or if those acts are both PRAKs and RAKs and it just depends on whether you are on the receiving end of the Act.

One thing I am sure of is the existence of AAKs (Accidental Acts of Kindness).  Like, when you are following a car and you both are going 10kph over the speed limit and the car in front of you is the one who gets pulled over.  That is an Accidental Act of Kindness although the person being pulled over may not see it as such.

So yes, these are the things that go through my head as I shovel snow. (That and for some reason the thought that I have overdue library books popped into my head.  I mean, why can't I think of that when I can actually go and return them?)