"I think I have been seriously wrong in sustaining this stupid argumentative shuttlecock with you."

BINGO!!! ;-)

If I may allude to the old Buddhist proverb about the farmer and the cow, Amos...

The farmer leads the cow around by a rope, and it appears that the farmer is in command of the situation. But who is really tied to whom? Is the cow tied to the farmer or is the farmer tied to the cow? Which one is freer? Or are they both tied, one to the other? Which one is mentally freer, the farmer or the cow?

Could the farmer decide to let go of the rope and release the cow? And if so, then what?

Is this particular cow one which it really makes any sense for the farmer to keep dragging around? What will it really profit the farmer to hang on to this particular cow?

And I could say the same thing to Bruce... ;-)

One thing is certain. The farmer will either drag the cow around until one of them dies.......or he will decide to let go of the rope at some point. At that moment, he will no longer be tied to the cow nor will the cow be tied to him. Each will have become free of the other.

*****

Here's another thought.

A man decided to have an argument with the ocean and cause it to stop rolling in noisily on his shoreline. He went down every day with a baseball bat. If he saw the breakers rolling in, he would beat furiously on the water with the bat, yelling "Now, you stop that at once!" He felt that if he kept this up long enough, the ocean would relent and stop rolling in. The argument went on and on and on for years, but the ocean wouldn't give in. Neither would the man.

Finally the man died.

The ocean is still rolling in.

What did the man gain? Well, it gave him a sense of meaning and righteous justification for awhile, so perhaps it wasn't a total waste of his time...though that is certainly debatable! ;-)