My 10 Commandments

Happy Easter, ladies and gentlemen. Hope the Easter Bunny was good to you. Yeah, it doesn't have the same ring to it as Santa.  It is, of course, Easter, and whilst I am not of a religious persuasion, I do try to live my life in such a way that I do the right thing, treat people well etc. I sometimes fall short of the standards I set for myself, but then who doesn't.

I watched a very interesting documentary on Nat Geo last night about life inside the Vatican. Having been to St Peter's Square for a General Audience (hey, when in Rome, as they say), it was fascinating to watch what goes on behind the scenes. But it got me thinking. The Church has at it's foundation, the 10 Commandments which, if you are a believer, were handed down by God to Moses on a couple of big stone tablets (which suggests that Moses worked out, I mean those bad boys wouldn't be light!).  These formed The Laws, and thus deserved their capitals. I mean God wrote them with his finger, in stone! If that doesn't deserve a couple of capital letters, what does!! I mean, sure, it put a lot of skilled artisans out of business when the graven image market dried up, but those are the dangers of a free market economy!

Anyway, the point of this is that I came to realise that I have my own 10 commandments, 10 rules by which I (try to) live my life. So, for the lack of anything more interesting to write about, I will espouse them:

1. Thou Shalt Not Cheat... I'm not talking about getting a couple of codes to make the X-Box game a bit easier (put it this way, I had cheat codes for GTA: Vice City and still was terrible at it), I'm talking about cheating on your significant other.  I may not have many virtues, but the one thing I can put my hand on my heart and say, is that I have never once cheated on a partner. Have I been tempted? Sure, but I never made that leap. I've been cheated on (twice, i.e., two different people have cheated on me, the first one was pretty much a serial cheater by the time we seperated, the second, once that I know of, but it was enough), and I know how much that hurt, I would never put anyone else through that. Never seen the point, nor have I ever seriously had the desire to. Anyway, from a practical viewpoint, I'm an ugly bugger and I can't even get one girlfriend, let alone a spare!  Actually, that pretty much is one of the original 10 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'. Well, there you go!

2. Take care of your friends... I know a lot of people, I even like some of them. However, the ones I would call true friends, the ones I would go out of my way for, ones I would move hell and earth for to help if needed, well, they are a rare breed. I'd say no more than half a dozen make that elite group. So, from Cairneyhill to California, from Lochgelly to Lockport, NY, from Kirkcaldy (twice) to Kyrgyzstan and Kampuchea (I was going to put Kansas and Kentucky, but I don't know anyone from those states. Ok, so I don't know anyone from Kyrgyzstan either, and Kampuchea is now called Cambodia, and I don't know anyone from there either, but hey, they are a bit more exotic!) and the other places I can't be bothered finding alliterations for, I would like to say to those friends who mean the most to me, thank you. I won't embarrass them by naming them here, but I hope they know who they are.

3. Do Unto Others... As you would have done to you. I don't believe in karma. I don't believe in fate. I do, however, believe that the world would be a better place if people took that little bit of time to help others, or just even be civil. I mean is it really a hardship to hold a door open for someone? Is it that hard to say thank you if someone holds a door open for you? Please and thank you seems to be vanishing from more and more people's vocabularies, and I think that's sad.

4. Don't Stop Learning... Let me start by saying, I'm not any kind of genius. I am constantly surprised, and not in a good way, at my lack of learning, my lack of knowledge. It's one of the reasons I watch so many documentaries, one of the reasons I'm reading a book I only fractionally understand (it's called 'Why Does E=MC2', and it's prattling on about spacetime and Minkowski space, it makes my brain hurt), one of the reasons why Wikipedia is probably my most used website. Your mind is a wonderful thing, it needs to be nourished like the rest of your body.

5. Enjoy music... Anyone who has read my previous blog about music will know how big a role music plays in my life. I won't repeat myself here!

6. Be Honest... I guess you could pretty much tie this in with #1 to a degree, but I think there is enough of a difference with this one to merit it's own slot. If I'm asked for a honest opinion, I will give it. If it's a low opinion then I will try to word it as politely as I can, but I'm not going to lie. Similarly, if I say something nice to/about someone, then it's because I mean it, simple as that. Likewise, if I ask someone a question, I would rather have the truth, even if it hurt me, than have a lie which would make the hurt even worse when that lie was exposed, which it would be.

7. Don't Worry About What You Can't Control... Yeah, I'm a bit of a hypocrite for putting this one in, because it's something I need to make sure I do way more of. I put it in because it provides a good example of what happens when I don't follow my own commandments. I'm not going into details, but I had a bit of a bad weekend, there were reasons, but they don't merit discussion here, but ultimately, I wound up getting trapped in my own head, I'm sure people will know what I mean by that, and I let things multiply in my head, and the cause of my malaise was something I don't really have any control over. So, folks, take heed of this one, and don't wind up like me!!

8. Admit Your Mistakes... If I mess something up, which I do with distressing regularity, I own up to it, and I use that experience to (hopefully) prevent a recurrence of said mistake. In my experience, most decent people are prepared to forgive an honest mistake, but much less inclined to forgive any deliberate obfuscation to try and cover mistakes.

9. Be Tolerant of Others... I'm not religious, but I don't think less of people who are (unless they are trying to 'save' me, or convert me, in which case all bets are off).  I don't care if someone is gay, straight, bi, black, white, green, fat, thin, hairy, bald, all I care about is one thing - are they decent people. If the answer is yes, then everything else is irrelevant.  If the answer is no, everything else is still irrelevant, because I don't hang around with assholes.

10. Remember Where you Come From... No matter where I go, no matter what I do, where in wind up living, I will always be a wee boy from Dunfermline, the son of two hard working parents, who did their best. I'm proud of that. There are a multitude of things I would change about myself, both physically (blimey, if I ever won the lottery no one would see me for 6 months so I could get a plastic surgeon to rebuild me pretty much from the ground up!!) and psychologically (better make that 6 months a year, so I could get a psychologist to do the same!!), but every time I am asked where I'm from, the answer will always be the same... I'm from a small village just outside Dunfermline. Townhill may not be fancy, it's never going to be a major seat of learning, it's never going to be an artistic centre, but for me, it will always be home.

And that, dear readers, is that. There will be no 'Springer Moment' to end with tonight, hell, pretty much the entire thing is one big 'Springer Moment' after another!  If you have made it this far, thank's for reading.