On Saturday Annie, John and I played the ‘Stars’ board game, one I did not know and of Annie’s favourites. It is a very pleasant game in that for every spot you land on there is a little something. It make me suspect that it was designed with behaviourist ideas in mind about rewards. This aside, we had fun and it calls for more of the same.

It is a very pleasant game in that for every spot you land on there is a little something.

The earlier Friday night I visited Rene who is in the hospital on one of his regular bouts. He had been doing quite well I thought and I told him so. In particular just before I went on my trip to Holland and also afterwards. This morning he left me a phone message at seven am, which I missed hearing and just listened to. He some times sings a little song and I noticed that he has a good voice, but social interaction within a choir may be a problem.

Sunday morning I made a ‘baby visit’ - lying-in visit - to Sarah and BJ, who have a little newly born daughter, two weeks old. So small and so cute; Solé is her name. For Alec I’d brought a little face ball with hair. The ball can be moulded in various expressions and shapes. It was a hit with son and father! Sarah is doing fine and looked well and BJ’s dad is helping out for about a week yet as a very skilled and caring maternity nurse.

On Sunday I met with my friends at the Palliser, which is now fully decorated with Christmas paraphernalia blending so well with its interior style. During coffee time I had to report my take on the play ‘Liberation Days’, which explores the interaction of Dutch society and Canadian soldiers in the six months after May 5 1945 in the Netherlands after liberation from Nazi-German occupation.

During the morning’s waking up process during I often make my first affirmations. Today a new insight regarding tolerance emerged into my awareness. It is as follows.

Every once in a while I experience an irritation about the way another person or people in general can behave. If I think of it I then at the crack of passing a negative judgement over the other, rein myself in by asking: Do you not think that you irritate others at times and that they may just accept that about you as being ‘typically Tony’? This stops me from condemning the other and at least accepting the noticed behaviour for now.

My next thought was as follows. This kind of acceptance is the inside out version of ‘what you do not want done to you, don’t do that to others.’ This saying arrests you about inflicting ‘harm onto others’.

'the tolerate in others' … encourages you and me to expand our boundary of social interaction.

This prevention of doing harm we can now turn into an admonition for being tolerant, by applying: Tolerate others, as others tolerate you, in your daily habits and customs. Whereas “the don’t do onto others …” keeps you from doing harm, “the tolerate in others …” encourages you and me to expand our boundary of social interaction.

There is a ‘proviso’ that applies to both conduct guide lines and that is the one of ethics and morals. To tolerate evil is not a good guide to live by and neither is it admissible to force my rules of good behaviour onto others, who have different values.

Another rule I use is one relating to motivation of my self and others. When I have the notion that another person may have ulterior motives, I remind myself that if my intention is clear and clean, I should credit the other with the same intention, unless proof to the contrary emerges.
<10:57am and 11:35am~