Eye for an eye (i/i)

Had a nice long bike ride today.  I'm just getting back into it after a long lay-off but quickly realized how much I've missed it.  One of my favorite parts is how my energetically my mind wanders.  It is almost a day-dream like state and I suspect there is a strong correlation to oxygen deprivation.
One of todays many mind excursions went something like this:
It started with an old conundrum that I've visited many times.  In this permutation I was thinking of the state of trust when buying a used car.  Let's say you visit a used car lot where you find the car you've been looking for but priced a couple of thousand higher than you think it is worth.  To get things started, you offer five thousand under the asking price.  The salesman grimaces, but trudges off to talk with his sales manager.  To your surprise he comes back with a sign-off on your offer.  Is your first reaction joy at the incredible deal?  Probably not.  Instead your mind will ask two things: First, you'll be certain you could have got the car for less.  Second, you'll immediately begin to wonder whats wrong with with the car.
Should you go ahead and make the purchase, you will likely be plagued with concern about the reliability of this car for months or years.  You'll never really feel comfortable about the purchase and you might have strong misgivings about the integrity of the person that sold it to you.  The bottom line is that you would enjoy the car more and have more trust for the salesman if there was some haggling involved and you paid a  higher price for the car.
A second scenario would be that the dealer absolutely will not budge on the price.  Having looked high and low for this particular car you grudgingly go ahead with the purchase.  Again, your comfort level with the car may be compromised.  You find it hard to enjoy the car and you really feel like that salesperson took advantage of you.
In both scenarios it seems like there is a trust deficit.  There was no give and take or process to build trust around the transaction and the salesperson is not likely to ever have you return for another car in the future.  There needed to be some sense of balance for this to have been a comfortable arrangement.

Remembering that I was in an oxygen deprived state might help explain the "logical" leap from used cars to wars that I then made.  I started thinking about the lack of trust that exists between countries and ethnic groups of the world. From there I thought about this concept of a "trust deficit" and how that might apply to some of these situations.  In particular, I focused on the events of 9/11 where 2,976 innocent lives were taken by extremist.  At that moment, a large part of the world stood behind the United States and understood that this absolutely had to be dealt with at some level.  However, as we approach the ninth anniversary of 9/11 it seems that the world's support the U.S activies that stemmed from this event are at an all time low.  It began to feel strangely akin to the "trust deficit" scenario above. What if the U.S, instead of fighting a long drawn out war, reacted with comparable violence and sought to take the lives of 2,976 extremist fighters and then be done with it.  Well, on its face it sounds absolutely absurd.  But to me war is agonizingly absurd.  Perhaps it is the lesser of two absurdities.
To simplify this logic, I thought of a situation that might occur between two high school acquaintances.  Let's say that something one of them did just plain irked the other.  Finally, having gotten in trouble with his parents before school one morning, the irked fellow sees the irksome one and in his fuming state decides to punch him in the shoulder about as hard as he can.  The typical parenting advice at this point is to "walk away". This could be sound advice, but it  might it also set up a trust deficit that will make friendship between the two impossible.
What if the irksome one decides after school that day to ambush the other student and beats him to the point where he ends up with stitches and a concussion?  Again, we now have a huge trust deficit.  The final scenario is that at the next opportunity the irksome one levels a well-placed and strong shoulder shot to the original aggressor.  Even if he is extremely angry at first, once he settles down he'll have to admit he had it coming.  If he can't admit it, perhaps his friends will tell him he deserved it.  There is potential in this scenario to build a little respect.  Both of the first two scenarios leave one of the students out of balance in relationship to the other.
When we fight a war only to win, are we creating such an imbalance that it will always come back to haunt us?  If we "turn the other cheek" are we doing ourselves a disservice?  Could it be that a precisely measured response would actually build some level of respect with our enemies?
I'm not convinced one way or the other, but even with the oxygen levels back to normal it seems like there may be some merit to this.

Day one - Humor

Excellent timing here.  I'm about 85 percent asleep and ready to post the first blog.  I promised myself I wouldn't plan anything, but instead force myself to write about the first thing that popped up after I started typing.  Had some beauts' lined up, but they'll have to wait while I deliver on this promise.  <Pause> ...  Rats.  The first thing that popped in was a Facebook comment I added just minutes ago.
Well, at least the post didn't end up being x-rated.
 Based on some recent posts and a long history of people shaking their heads, I am forced to realize that often my humor only seems to work if you are coming from the same perspective of , well,  me.  If somebody says that person doesn't want to hear anymore about "X", I am automatically driven to attempt some "humor" based on X squared.  Jokes about your profession are always favored.  I have several friends that are attorneys and I love to hit them with  the latest belly-buster.  Now, in my head, I would only tell such a joke to an attorney that clearly realizes I wouldn't tell it if I thought it might be taken personally.  Instead, I think by telling them they will be flattered that I obviously don't count them among the shark-like critter that the joke targeted.  I have learned that some of them aren't flattered. Oh well.
It's interesting that this "thought" occurred on Day 1.  I am realizing it would be good practice for me to minimize my humorous undertakings and try to write something more cerebral.   Yeah, cerebral, that's it.
OK. Practically speaking, humor needs to be minimized, intellect just ain't gonna happen, so this bloggy-thingyness will have to be made up of the bits that sift down between those two.
I really need to sleep. The Ambien is hitting hard (die-hard insomniac). I'm a tad dizzy even.
Darnit, this first post is a bust.
Tomorrow.  There is always Tomorrow.