We all mess up, sooner or later. Some of us more than others, or more publicly than others, but sometimes we all screw up.

If we could read other people's minds, we'd see all their secret shames...

I had cut out when the sermon began, because Eric was getting restless, so I didn't hear the statement read to the congregation from the minister. Yet I know he apologized for any shame he might have brought us, and promised to try to do better...which makes it sound like there might be---just might be--- some basis for the charges.

We'll see. Yet we'll all carry on.

I think he was pleased at all the hugs and love that was shown.

Nevertheless, it made me think of something---that in a way I was glad I didn't know, absolutely, how much truth and how much exagerration were in the charges. I don't want to know. It's none of my business.

Sometimes what is not known is as important as what is known. Sometimes the ability to stop communicating---is as important as communication.

Sometimes I think the most merciful thing about our condition is that we are not telepathic.

How many of us would have been disgusted and/or embarassed, when we were teenagers--- if we could read the minds of our dates, and seen what their last sexual fantasy was?

...And realized they were doing the exact same thing for us, rifling through our minds?

Would we have been inspired and titillated, or ashamed and grossed out?

I suspect...more often than not...the latter.

How many people would take a passing sexual fantasy by a person watching a member of the sex they're attracted to, as a personal proposition/insult?

Or all those thoughts of envy and greed and hate that sometimes flash through us? What if our every thought was laid bare? How many people do you smile at that you can't stand? That you talk very nicely to, all the time thinking,

Brother, what a creep!

How many bosses have you had that you had contempt for? Or fellow workers?

(Note I am not talking about my personal situation: I am very good friends with my immediate boss, and most of my coworkers and higher bosses. Yet there have certainly been times in my life...and I suspect in yours---when the feelings were different.)

What if you couldn't hide your contempt or your feeling of what a creep they are? What if you knew how many people secretely thought of you as a creep or a whiner?

Could you handle the truth?

Could there ever be a company that held itself together, or a government under such a lack of privacy of thought?

Part of me would love to be able to read minds. Yet I suspect it would be worse than I expected...

Reading the resentment in every clerk's mind as they served me at the store or the shopping mall...

To see past all the polite lies that keep us from taking everyone personally...

Or worse still, to know oneself totally ignored by most people. That, I think, would be the worst thing of all.

Or, alternately, to see the love, and be sure of the love that some of us have for each other. For family members to see past the squabbling that sometimes takes place and see what really matters.

I think that would work. I'm just not sure of other loves...whether they would form in the first place, or if they would go too far, simply on a thought.

There are people who form crushes/infatuations at work, that they never voice or act upon, because they're married or otherwise spoken for. Oftentimes these crushes go away....

Yet if they could be immediately seen by the object of their affections---would they go away? Or would the uncomfortable memory of the crush always fall between them?

Oh, there would be advantages; no rapist or thief or murderer could catch a victim unawares. No politician would be able to lie to his constituents. No con man could fleece an unsuspecting customer...

No surprise attacks in wars; no misunderstanding of others and what they are. No prejudice, I suppose, since you couldn't let misconceptions and preconceptions blind you to the mind which was right in front of you.

Yet I suspect we would find most people much more unloveable than we might wish...

We would probably start to cloister ourselves just with those who love us...and become a society of psychic sociopaths.

Sometimes the silence is as important as the spoken word. Sometimes knowing when not to say anything...

...Is the greatest gift of all.