Memories of the 28th Century

In 1966 Erma Bombeck mentioned "that 'don't sweat the little stuff'. Had become her motto." In 1983 Robert S. Eliot was quoted in an article in Time as saying that he had two rules for reducing stress: "Rule 1: Don’t sweat the little stuff. Rule; 2: It’s all little stuff." I suspect that the phrase goes back before Erma, but I don’t feel like tracking it down. But I would like to amend it to: Be careful of the small things, because everything is made up of small things; if we get the small pieces right and put things together correctly, then the whole might be right. This is just an idea.

On the other hand, "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost." This proverb has a long history, and at least once it appeared in the real world in the case of King Richard III of England lost his kingdom for lack of a nail. As he was losing the battle and enemy troops were closing in around him he said; "My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse"
And the old proverb 'A stitch in time saves nine,' has the same fundamental meaning. But I didn't start this to write about proverbs. I have noticed more and more people neglecting the

Unfortunately, it seems like most people don't take care of the small things, so they get the big things wrong as a matter of course. That is, they neglect to watch the pennies, so their pounds are not being cared for.

Whatever one does is an aggregate of small motions or actions. Even writing a simple blog post, like this, is a composite of thinking of the idea, which was easy, because people have been annoying me by neglecting the little things. Then I looked for the proverbs; proverbs are usually good for making something seem familiar. Then I started writing. And writing is very much a matter of putting together little things to make something greater. Every keystroke takes me a little closer to finishing this.

One of the things that drove me to write this one has been the low quality of drivers and pedestrians around here. Especially youths seem to ignore pedestrian crossings. I will do that at 5 AM, when there is no traffic, but some of those people watch the light change green for cars going where they plan to cross, and then with traffic coming at them they start crossing.

That reminds me that one day, when I walked to a crosswalk in fairly heavy traffic, as a way to prolong my life, and the person I was with mentioned that Leonard Nimoy used crosswalks, because it would be illogical to allow someone to hit him. That's pretty much how I look at it. Using the crosswalk is an added precaution, and if someone hits me and I survive, then it would be another count in my suit against him.

Drivers can be even worse. There's one place where I sometimes sit and watch the bad driving: wrong way on a one way street, U-turn in traffic, and so on. A few days ago I was crossing in a crosswalk near there, and one driver decided to ignore the pedestrian in the crosswalk and kept going. I had just cleared my throat, so I spat, and I was flattered that there was a response: the driver stopped in the middle of traffic and started yelling. I asked him to come over to the side of the street, where I was, but he just spat and missed. He was in such a hurry that he couldn't obey the traffic law, but he had so much extra time that he could stop and yell at me. I shrugged and went about m business, but someone else was so moved by the matter that she called the police, but the dispatcher wasn't interested. In that little event there were people who sweated the little things and people who didn't. That driver probably won't live to be forty; he'll either annoy the wrong person, or he'll have a stroke.

But there are little things in everything, including the federal budget, the laws of Massachusetts, and federal laws, and those three items depend on careful use of grammar. Dropping even a single comma can greatly change the meaning of something. I have it easy writing blogs and fiction; I don't have to be all that careful, but legal documents can be badly damaged by poor grammar.

I hope that this post will have some effect; although I don't expect the one who ignored the pedestrian crossing law to read this, but some people might realize that the little things make up big things, and that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts, especially if the parts are put together correctly.

Now I have to take the time to put nails and other pieces together well and carefully, making all of the small pieces fit into a good whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail