Degree of Tolerance
I was thinking about tolerance. Not the human kind, which is important, but the engineering kind. I used to say that you could never cut a board to be one foot long. Perhaps, 1.02 or 1.0003 or etc., but, you get the idea.
It’s impossible for a human to cut a board one foot long. It depends on your degree of tolerance. If I extend it out to the nth zero, eventually the zero will become some number. It is one of the frailties of the human psyche that we think we are precise when, in reality, we are precise only within a degree of tolerance. Fortunately, in our day to day lives, this is good enough.
But, I started thinking about this in terms of our president. You could say within a degree of tolerance he is not a bigot. Or, within a degree of tolerance, he is thinking about the good of the people of the United States. Or, within a degree of tolerance, he is not behaving like an immature adolescent.
So, perhaps, one could conclude that he is not a bigot, or selfish, or retarded in his mental and emotional development.
You could.
I just was in South Carolina exercising in the countryside, and I heard a voice coming from my pocket. It turned out my phone had inadvertently dialed someone. I recognized the voice, but could not remember her name. I was hoping that she wasn’t murdered in some horrible way, with me being the last one to call before the untimely event. I could end up in the clink!
Well, I could!