Daily post: Things you learn if you live long enough

DAILY PROMPT: HUMBLE PIE
Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

If you don’t stick your neck out, you don’t get your head chopped off.

Being oldish, it’s many years since I realised this, and being less than stupid in some regards, it’s a while since I was forced to stand like a headless chook on a dung heap and watch my most treasured body part roll down the hill and land in a mucky puddle.

Which isn’t to say I don’t make blunders. Course I do. But as I’ve mentioned before (several times: I aim for consistency) mistakes are useful if you learn from them, and these days, I don’t rush in with mouth squawking and neck outstretched in irresistible invitation to an axe. Mistakes are quieter affairs from which recovery is possible given a willingness to admit them, apologise and move on.

This doesn’t, of course, apply to purely academic discussions – verbal free-for-alls in which anything goes, a good time is had by all and no one gets hurt, offended, insulted, belittled or otherwise put out. These are good stuff, although slightly intimidating to the uninitiated – a fact I’ve discovered since from those who survived what was (unwittingly) a baptism of fire.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten enough humble pie in my time to stock the average patisserie, and here’s something else I’ve learned: however much of the stuff you manage to cram in, there are some people for whom it will never be enough. They want blood, in copious quantities, for the rest of your natural life.

You can bleed to death, that way.

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