Most reading these words know I'm a Too Hot forumer. My own particular and peculiar addiction. I do a little posting on political threads but mostly I gravitate towards religious topics. I generally say what I mean and I confess sometimes I come come across too strong. An old habit. I know I irritate a few people.

I'm not entirely sure how much I realized this until tonight when I happened to reread something I had posted earlier in the evening. The second look distressed me for two reasons. Responding rudely to a comment made on a thread by a too Hot forumer, I asked him about his attitude on a certain situation then added I would never feel such a way.

Disturbed by my own attitude presented in my comments, I recalled something the ever astute Dreamliner directed to me in a post earlier this week. In one of his wry but always welcome musings he made a quip about my "righteous indignation". In all honesty when I think back to my first reaction when reading that I will admit to a pinch of indignation coupled with the amusement. Even then I wanted to deny it.

There comes a point when things become obvious and tonight was the one that revealed to me my posting style does at times encompass a measure of "righteous indignation". I can only surmise others besides DL and myself have picked up on this as I've had more than a few near acrimonious exchanges with other Too Hotters in the years of my latest GC incarnation. I write what I believe and what needs to be written and will make no apologies for that. I am, however, sorry for the abrasiveness some of my posts have carried.

Most of us possess our own predictable posting style. We know with near certainty the tone and tack certain ones of us will take, what lame phrases will be written and which ones of us will clash and for what reason. Hey, there's no free will on this board. It troubles me that I see myself in that mode. And it troubles me that it troubles me.

Emerson declared "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," a statement that gave me pause when I first read it many years ago. Like most things that take me up short I mulled that one over in my mind for a while. Consistency is a double-edge quality. Being able to predict reliable outcomes is a good thing but it's also nice to have an element of surprise in one's association with others. Novelty refreshes stale relationships and associations, keeping them dynamic and challenging. When consistency sets in that edge can be lost so I have tended and attempted to avoid it.

Woe is me to discover belatedly, I too, have a predictable, undesirable persona. This is baggage I don't want to lug around; I'm trying to fly and it's weighing me down. I deleted the second sentence of the eye-opening post and wrote another intending to mitigate the self-righteous spanking I had given earlier. It, too, still carried a tone vaguely offensive so I deleted that one. The only portion remaining was a question. Surely I could leave that. No, it had to go, too. A self examination revealed my intention with the question also carried a burden of "righteous indignation". Guilty. For the first time I can recall in my Too Hot posting history I deleted an entire post. And not for the one single, most noble reason, but for that and a couple other reasons, too. More baggage.

For the person the post was directed to if he saw it before it was deleted: My apologies to you sir, for the offense.