The insufferable Winklevoss Twins. Most likely how I would present if I had their looks, money, and Ivy League pedigree.

People - the Problem that Just Won't Go Away 

This morning I received an email forward from a friend promoting something or other that was being slurried along the NSA monitored fake news dissemination pipeline. The NSA, we should all keep in mind, will start reporting to Donald John Trump early next year.

Exactly what this Mail Chimp propagated piece of bright eyed prose was actually trying to be eluded me. Social architecture? Board-of-Directors astrology? Simple holiday good cheer?  My friend Seph Harris dubbed this type of communication 'Corporate Baby Talk' some years ago when we were both in the business of producing it ourselves. No matter what you think these things are, generally they are an effort to separate you from your ducats.

The email was all about 'Respect' (Ho' ihi). Virtually everything here (even business collateral) gets bathed in pineapple nectar and has a lei placed around its neck.  But hey, that's OK with me. The Aloha ethos is infinitely less cloying than the brand of regional boosterism practiced where I'm from.

Everything - you may possibly have heard - is bigger in Texas. When evaluating annoying, self involved, world-class jiggery-pokery nothing even comes close to what we produce in the Lone Star State. Yes, everything is bigger in Texas. Particularly the enormous piles of steaming bullshit that collect when we start speaking about how friendly we are.  Compared to the brand of cultural aggrandizement practiced back home the whole Aloha thing seems almost sincere to me.

Almost. I haven't been here all that long though. In fact, people frequently state that fact as a question to me in polite conversation.

Jane closed her Ho' ihi forward email with an innocent question: 'What do you think'?  

"What do [I] think?" answers from me are fraught with danger. Danger of boring people to death. Danger of inducing eye rolls severe enough to cause strabismus.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T? I'm all for it of course.

*  *  *

As a man with a deep, abiding skepticism regarding human motives, I am deeply suspicious of. . . well, everything.  But not - and this is a difficult distinction to grasp - everybody.

'Respect', whether rendered in a Hawaiian vowel infested spelling salad, a disingenuous Texas drawl or... Flemish, is a concept (indeed, a word) which is thrown around with a great deal of alacrity and not a little drama.

One of the truths I hold self evident (to invoke my favorite slave-owning father founder) is that everyone should be trusted - and everyone should most certainly be respected. At least on initial blush. A man who instinctively trusts his fellows, who reflexively offers good cheer and respect to those he meets along this path of mystery and uncertainty is a better man than one who does not extend these... courtesies. 

Although I extend these courtesies freely I have a very hard time keeping them on offer. I want to retreat based on scant evidence. My judgements are too harsh, too reactionary, too fraught with my own impatience, ignorance, and prejudice.  Even though I am aware of this, I have tough time avoiding it.

As a deliberate tactic to lessen my tendency to categorize people as members of 'the usual gang of idiots' (I invoke Alfred E. Newman with as much comfort as Thomas Jefferson - I think they would have respected each other enough) I make an honest effort to behave as if everything I have just said about my judgments and feelings does not exist.

In other words: I go a hundred extra miles to be nice and to accord respect to all comers - even if they exhibit clear and deliberate asshatery. As such, I am polite, cheerful and even affectionate towards most everybody. I strive for this even though I summarily consign a great many people to that category Jonathan Swift called 'The Confederacy of Dunces'.

Frequently I base these prejudices on nothing other than looks. Or wardrobe.

This sounds horrible.  I'm just being honest.

Fake niceness is often the best I seem to be able to manage. And it is not always effective; more observant people point out from time to time that I appear smug.

That  sounds horrible. They're just being honest.

But I know for a fact that a great many people who cross my path have the impression that I am a nice and respectful fellow. Perception really is reality. Word gets back to me. I'm pretty sure people like me.

Another self evident truth I hold is this: other people are essentially all we have.  And to not attempt to respect them (regardless of my feelings - feelings which are not facts) is a self defeating and, ultimately, ignorant act.

Even though I generally hold the Christian religion in contempt (for what I believe are good and sufficient reasons) its more earnest adherents practice something called 'self denial' which I believe is essential for a fellow like me to possess in order to exist with any comfort at all in a world filled with people.  

Many, if not most of whom, it should be noted, actually are worthy of respect.

Aloha and Ho' ihi Keiki!