I'm with Jason, he's spot on. Otherwise great pieces. Hang on to those ties they look really nice.

No, this is not unusual, and it is not a personal failure. It is a reminder that memory of a skill is not the same as the continuous practice of a skill. The saying about riding a bicycle suggests that once a pattern is learned, it is permanently retained. Yet even that example is misleading. A person who has not ridden in years may still “know how,” but the first moments back on the bicycle are hesitant, unsteady, and cautious. Knowledge remains, but fluency fades. Observe a school sports day where fathers join their children in a short race. I know every one of them remembers how to run.🫣 Yet their legs, lungs, and timing no longer cooperate with the confidence they once had. The knowledge is intact; the embodiment has weakened. Using a safety razor is no different.

@Al Voss 😁 It is, without question, a delicate subject. Some Dojo's hand out belts without worth and others only after months if not years of practice and dedication. This topic grazes ego and unsettles pride. My view may provoke disagreement, yet I hold it deliberately: no individual can truly claim mastery while still living. As long as one breathes, one remains in the process of becoming. Mastery implies completion; life guarantees incompletion. The moment a person declares themselves a master, they risk mistaking progress for finality. Perhaps mastery is not a title to be claimed, but a condition others bestow when the work is finished when the craftsman can no longer improve because time itself has closed the workshop. Until then, we practice.

American politics is one difficult topic to phantom and also why I avoid the constant churn of American news. Yet, as you rightly point out, your observation touches on a profound philosophical truth. Participation precedes judgment. Complaining without engagement is a kind of intellectual laziness, a detachment that undermines both responsibility and agency. To critique elections without voting, policies without proposing alternatives, or laws without raising a voice, is to demand change from a position of absence rather than presence. The absurdity of it is almost comical.... Its like complaining about a meal you never helped cook. (I know that all the gentleman here are refined enough to know better, but you get my point. ) Even in my own work, when I draft policies meant to enhance well-being and security, I sometimes falter. Living in the gray areas of decision-making is inevitable; the world is complex, and intentions often collide with outcomes. Yet your point remains: without active participation, without showing up for the processes that shape our shared spaces, the wrong people...or worse, no one, will step up. Life’s governance, whether political, professional, or social, is never self-executing. It requires attention, engagement, and teaching the next generation to care and act with ethics and discernment. To remain passive is to allow the currents of circumstance to dictate the terms of our existence. True influence, and perhaps true hope, emerges only from presence, conscious, deliberate, and persistent. A president or leader who drifts toward authoritarianism tests the vigilance of a society. Philosophically, this is the tension between trust and scrutiny: we grant authority to enable governance, yet we must not surrender judgment to complacency.Thus, the measure of responsible citizenship is twofold: act where you can shape outcomes, and remain vigilant where unchecked power threatens the integrity of the systems that allow you to act.

@Stephen Arnold absolutely. This can be seen time and time again whether it be politics or corporations even with people who have good intentions could have disastrous effects.

@Albert Asiamah thank you

@James Kinney cheers. I appreciate it.

Ah, boundaries, the only thing more sacred than the “last slice of (pizza)” rule. I am curious to learn of some of your boundaries? For me. I never talk to grown Japanese men who ware Hello Kitty slippers in public🤔. Or a coworker who tries to critique MY life choices...I just raise an eyebrow, and point to my imaginary (but very official) sign that reads, “Sarcasm and unsolicited opinions strictly prohibited,” and resume my coffee-drinking. I trust you sense the theatrical but entirely necessary, gravity of my point