When a child and growing up I had this notion I could be anything I wanted. I don't know how long I had it and pondered on the usual stuff. Astronaut or electrician but it didn't really matter because I just didn't know what it was I wanted to be. How this weird thought of my future came about I will never know. Perhaps is was from watching one of those Disney movies kids watch, or some TV program made for the young to inspire them. Plant thoughts into their heads about all things being possible. The TV being a major source not just of entertainment but in some part education as well. However, there was no direction or desire, no passion to be one thing against another. The belief of being able to be anything began to wither. I can't even point to a place and time reality started to leave a footprint. Just that it did. The place I was in, my upbringing and everything else were the real dictates of what I was going to do. The thing is it is not the "wanting" per se which actually achieves anything. Wanting is in fact a nasty little trait and is of no value, unless it is followed with even bigger doses of desire, passion and particularly commitment and perseverance. Only with these other traits could the thing I wanted to be come into fruition. Despondency gave way to real life, hard, cold real life. Something only people from working class backgrounds know about, those backgrounds where there is no golden spoon or egg, or society which looks after its own. So I did what I was going to do, and became an expert in manure shifting. I've shifted a hell of a lot of shit since.
But shit has it's upside. It is the basis from which all plants can grow. They love the stuff. Now sprinkle some good shit around vegetables and before you know it, the most wonderful succulent veg spring up from the ground. Shit is a base, it is the beginning of everything, of course it has it's bad name. Especially dog shit. Everyone gets some of it on their shoes once in a while and then what is their response? Yep, it's good luck to have stepped in it in the first place. So dog shit maybe isn't so bad either. Then there's the Americanism BS or Bull Shit. Now I don't know why they have to make it masculine because I have walked through a field of cows, and they leave the biggest cow pats ever. And the stink, bloody awful. It was an experience I had as a kid and have not revisited. Which reminds me how Sparkling always carries around a peg, I know it's for her finger but it would come in handy for her nose if she ever got to walk through a field where cows have been. Back to Bull. The term bull shit to be precise. Well I don't know why they use it over the other side of the pond, but if you think about it it's like saying any male species have worse shit than any female species. But as it was human being who made up this phrase, it's next to stating every male American has real bad shit. It must be something to do with their diet. I'm sure they are not all incredibly obese energy hogging and loud as the rest of the world stereotypes them to be. A stereotype which is plain shit. But it can't be helped and it's what stereotypes are for. Quick references or what psychologists might call schemata. A box in which to slot things into, sounds a bit like compost.
The thing is I can now tell quite easily when some shit is about to hit the fan, I know what shit looks like when it is dressed up, how the smell still lingers no matter what someone says. I know how it is made, usually by the biggest looking bulls around, the ones which make the most noise, eat the most grass and trot around as if they are the masters of their world. Their world being the confines of a well fenced enclosure. But outside of this fence it's not more than a pile of shit. So in a life time I have acquired a nose for sniffing out shit. No matter how it is presented to me, damn I must be due a medal from the Queen.
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