Power "tools"

“You keep using that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Tool” is a word introduced to me by my good friend D$ Glaizer. Well, as a native to the English language, naturally, I’d heard it before; but Glaige opened my view to an entirely new meaning of the word. A loose interpretation might be:

Tool (tōōl) n. Anyone (particularly a male) who shrouds his self-centered actions within the parameters of social propriety, all the while stepping on the toes of his peers, whose actions and intentions are confined to said propriety.

“I don’t understand.”
“With time and training, Annie, you will.”

This is the type of meaning that is easier to identify than to define, so I’ll try to give you some for instances. The tool is the guy at the party who’s interested in the girl you’re talking to, so he inconspicuously eaves drops until he finds an “opportune moment” to butt HIMSELF into (and YOU out of) the conversation; it’s the girl from your study group who doesn’t cite her sources when she brings up findings from YOUR research so that SHE can look smart in front of the class; it’s the manager at work who disallows a cross-department promotion be offered to YOU because replacing you would make HIS job more difficult; and (on a less competitive level) it’s the roommate who conjures an innocent excuse as to why he can’t hang out with YOU, when really he’s just trying to free up his night so HE can take out some insignificant dame he met on campus who probably doesn’t even remember his name. These are tools.

“That there’s Will Scarlett—he’s full of piss and wind.”

So there’s this absolute tool at church. Let’s refer to him as “Joe”. He’s the kind of guy who can’t make a comment in Sunday school without sounding like he’s campaigning for apostleship. Sunday school teachers must dread seeing him walk into their classroom, because without fail, he’ll have a comment to interject into each lesson, only they’re not merely comments—each time he opens his mouth, you can expect at least a seven minute sermon.

For those not familiar with LDS Sunday school, your average classroom comment usually lasts about 45 seconds and begins with, “well, for me…” But Joe’s discourses often begin with some major assumption presented as fact, like his recent proclamation, “Let me tell you the NUMBER ONE reason why people don’t come to church: its because they don’t read daily from the word of God!” Then he proceeds to recite to the class three or four verses from the scriptures with his finger waving in the air and his voice trembling in the cadence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

“Not another lecture, Master.”

His “comments” always end in the same way: he repeats that first major statement of his, “and THAT, my brethren, is the number… one… reason why our brothers and sisters don’t come to church.” Then he creeps back into his chair with his eyebrows pursed together in an expression saying, “That completely drained me, both emotionally and spiritually.”

“I've heard this lesson before.”
“Then why don't you listen to me?”

This man is not our ordained spiritual leader, he’s a 26-year-old kid with a bad tie and an inferiority complex. I sometimes have a hard time hearing what he says because I’m so busy rolling my mind's eyes, but I usually catch enough of his comment to come up with a contrasting comment of my own. The purposes of my post-joe comments are usually two fold, 1.) to hopefully bring the class discussion back somewhere within the general vicinity of reality, and 2.) to stand as a simple yet sincere contrast to the hoopla and the hell-and-damnation of the misspent, irreclaimable past seven minutes of class time. On that particular occasion, my post-Joe comment was something to the effect of, “Well… I read my scriptures all the time, but sometimes I don’t come to church because things can get pretty awkward here.” Okay, so I didn’t say exactly that… but I did say that we’d be wrong to think that there is any one reason why people don’t attend. That people’s needs and their disappointments change from time to time, so there isn’t one all encompassing reason why people don’t come.

“It clearly states in the Book of Who...”

I referred to an applicable quote by the prophet (to restore some credability) which outlines three things that every new member needs to maintain his activity in the church. Discussion ensued—yet another contrast from Joe’s comments, which usually incite silence, and not the kind of silence that Joe assumes we’re feeling: not a silence of awe and respect, but a silence of stupor, because the way he presents his comments is so overpowering that really the only response anyone can give to them is a puzzled and uninterested, “...wow.”

“He has not just power, not just skill, but dash:

that rare, invaluable combination of boldness and grace.”

There’s another word that I’ve learned from Dustin (actually I think Ty's the first one to have used it): dash. One who’s dash is the antithesis to one who is a tool. I’m not sure where the word comes from, but I think it’s the root from which come words like haberdashery and dashing good looks. A loose interpretation of this word might be:

Dash (dăsh) adj. 1.) Of exceedingly great awesomnicity. 2.) Possesing the ideal balance of confidence, candor, capability, and constraint.

Some may say that writing what I’ve written is a breech of constraint and therefore has undone my self-proclaimed dashness and that I should just overlook his “uniquness”. “Hogwash,” says I. Let’s not confuse being dash with being oblivious. One who is oblivious doesn’t notice annoyances in others. One who is dash does notice them; he realizes that to ignore them is to be dishonest with himself, and to proclaim them is to be unfair to the offender (who, in his own right, may be oblivious). So, one who is dash, makes note of the annoyance, learns his own lesson from it and shares that lesson with those of a like mind.

Some may say that I’m simply being judgmental, that he’s who he is and I’m who I am and there’s not a right or a wrong to it. “Codswallop,” says I. Awkward is awkward and weird is weird. Joe, the man, may be neither, but Joe, the Reverend, is both incarnate. And if normal people go around exercising hyper tolerance for weird people, they are only condemning those weirdoes to continue in their weirdness.

“…When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be.

Pass on what you have learned.”

The way for normal people to stay normal is by discussing the abnormalities they ought to avoid. I’d argue that this is how modern conventions such as underarm deodorant, orthodontics, and hairbrushes came about: people noticed something in others that they wanted to avoid themselves—eventually those who inspired the change will catch on, they’ll conform to normality, and the world will be a better place because of it.