Will the Annoyances and Grievances Ever End?

I try to live lightly, gently, not causing any problems to anyone. I'm conscientious of others, keep my space clean, don't leave a mess, don't make noise, don't disrespect other people's property or space. I just go about my life, trying to live harmoniously with the natural flow of nature, striving to do the least amount of harm as possible, wherever I go, whatever I do.

And this is the reason why I don't talk to many people, other than when I have to superficially for work, or shopping, that sort of thing, because so many people are living in the exact opposite way, with an abundance of stupidity and ignorance, people acting disrespectful and unconscientious.

The landscapers here where I live are a lost cause. They are idiots. They are incapable of learning from their mistakes. They are incapable of modifying their behavior.  Instead of learning from experience, and getting better over time, they've only gotten worse. I feel that they must be completely brain damaged and are incapable of thinking. That is the only explanation. They do more harm than good, and don't know it. Try to tell them, it won't do no good. No matter how many times I complain, nothing will ever change here. It just gets worse. I thought about posting videos, consulting professionals on the matter, getting their input, seeing if I can discover and expose any violations the company may be guilty of, but I don't feel I have the energy. If I were to succeed what good would it really do, they will probably hire another company just as bad to replace them. So, like I said it's a lost cause. The only solution is to leave, just ignore the problems while I do my time and run out my lease, and get the hell out.

I have two neighbors I suspect are drug dealers. One of them I suspect has a lab in his apartment. I ignore it for fear that my life may be in danger if I report it. He also throws his cigarette butts all over the place. The entrance of his front door is littered with cigarette butts, who lives that way? I used to smoke, and I used an ashtray. How hard is that? I cannot comprehend the mentality of that, of people throwing their butts on the ground, throwing their garbage on the ground. It is entirely alien to my way of thinking, that of treading lightly on the earth, being respectful and conscientious. I have other neighbors that are also very loud. Think they own the place, having loud parties, using crude language, smoking joints outside there apartment, right out in the parking lot and driving buzzed. Makes me sick. I couldn't care less if people want to use recreational drugs in the privacy of their own home, but I object to public usage and people getting high and then driving under the influence.

But what I am going to do, call the cops on everybody? I can't do it. I'd be calling every day, and eventually the cops would stop responding, wouldn't be available in a real emergency, and all my neighbors would hate me, and probably try to hurt me. So I do nothing but feel pissed off sometimes about where I'm living.

You know I didn't think this apartment complex was that bad, for the price range I would venture it is one of the better ones, simply because it has the most trees, it is the most park like apartment complex for the money, and that's why I chose it. It's small but efficient, and they've always been prompt with the maintenance requests, fixed or replaced everything that was broken in a timely manner.

I was looking for a place that was affordable, that I could pay the rent working part-time, and still be able to save. But that's just it, no matter where you live, at a certain price range of rent, which differs from city to city, state to state, basically any place with rents affordable to a person making minimum wage, you're going to have a criminal element. It's inevitable. And where you have a criminal element, you're also going to have more people who are generally disrespectful and unconscientious of others, and more noise, more garbage, more illegal activity, more disagreements and fights, and more disharmony and discord.

That is the way of the ghetto. But are the people bad because their poor, or poor because their bad? Probably a combination of both. Some people though are rotten to the core, and will always be poor. And if you gave them a lot money, they'd still be rotten to the core, and spiritually poor. I firmly believe this to be true.

I never realized before today just how despicable and vile a person could be. I mean, yeah, I knew evil people existed, I just never met one in person before. You know, you're nice, and their not nice to you. You say: "Please don't do this." They say: "Fuck you!" There completely in the wrong, and their turning the tables on you, saying no you're in the wrong. Impossible to reason with.

I just made enemies with a mentally unstable psychopath. For real. I have two outdoor cats I'm feeding. There not my cats, but I'm helping to take care of them, giving them food and water and so they feel safe hanging around outside my apartment. This psycho bitch has two little dogs that whenever she passes by she sicks her dogs on the cats and chases them into the parking lot where the cats usually find shelter under a car. This woman does it every time. I confronted her once before, asked her why she was doing that, and if she would please stop. She told me to fuck off, said I was crazy.

I confronted her again today. She appeared very mentally unstable, either mental illness, or a drug addict, maybe both, but I swear she almost hit me. She came up on me like on the Jerry Springer Show ready to attack. I just asked her to stop harassing the cats. And she came up in my face, looking all deranged, she almost looked like she was going to hit me. And acted like I was the crazy one. She was like if you don't want anyone to mess with your cats, don't let them outside.

I know now I made this worse. I should have just ignored it. Now I'm worried she may cause a problem in the future, either hurt me, my property, or maybe even hurt the cats.

Will the annoyances and grievances ever end? Apparently not. There's always something. Will there always be difficult people, toxic people, violent criminals, drug addicts, and crazies? Will there always be evil people?I guess speculating on the matter is fruitless, the true problem occurs when you are confronted with one face to face. It's like all of the sudden, for that brief moment in time, you are transported to another world, where law and order does not exist, where there is no sense of goodness or ethical standards of justice, a land where evil prevails and brute force is king.

It's a land where evil is predator and good is prey. That's what happens when you come face to face with an evil person who hates you, there is no logical argument or ethical justification to change their mind about you. They are going to do whatever they wish do, think whatever they wish to think, there is nothing you can say to stop them. If you fight, it's fight to the death. If they survive they will come after you. But if you kill them, you become them. So you lose either way.

That's how it is in the ghetto, the human jungle, a place where might is right, and where human animals live completely without reason and morality. It's not a fun place to live, it's an ugly place to live, but it's reality. I'm just saving my money, biding my time, and yes this too will pass.

Annoyances and Grievances Redux

I've been really annoyed with people lately, annoyed by their idiocy and their ignorance, that it has got me retreating as far away as possible. I've got problems with the landscapers at my apartment complex, problems with the pest control people, problems with the mail carrier, and problems with some of my neighbors.

The landscapers use the leaf blowers inappropriately, stirring up a lot of unnecessary dust, and contributing to a significant portion of air pollution from their gasoline powered exhaust. They overblow and overtrim, actually make a mess that wasn't there before, and don't appear to be very knowledgeable about the plants they are supposed to be taking care of. I've complained to the apartment manager but nothing has changed. I've confronted the landscapers directly, but they speak broken English and are completely unreceptive and incompetent, and there's like zero chance for intelligent communication. So it's pretty much a lost cause, but it never ceases to stop pissing me off.

Pest Control. My apartment is clean, don't have a problem with pests, don't have a problem seeing the occasional cockroach or ant, and would never use toxic pesticides to eliminate them. If I find any I catch them and put them outside. It's not a problem. Well some of the people I live around are slobs, they don't clean up after themselves, and then they wonder why they have an infestation of bugs. Because of them they've had to fumigate the building, they sprayed in between the walls, and now I'm getting poisoned, because it's only a matter of time before the insecticide gets into my apartment too, and being a renter there is absolutely nothing I can do about it to stop it.

Mail Carriers. I've lived in this city for almost twenty years now, and have been living in my current apartment for just a little over a year now, and have had more problems here with the mail these past three months than in all the twenty years I've been in this city. Problems with mail not being delivered properly, getting my neighbors' mail, my neighbors getting my mail, packages being delivered to the wrong address, not getting slips telling me I have a package ready for pick up, have had two slips and only one package, packages without slips, and slips without packages. And there is also the issue of the mail coming super late, and thus having to wait an extra day to pick up packages left at my apartment complex office because the mail came too late for me to get before the office closes, etc. It's gotten so bad that I've enrolled in paperless billing for all my bills simply because I don't trust important mail coming to me, because I'm concerned I'm not going to get it.

And then there's the neighbors. Most of my neighbors living around me smoke, and their always sitting outside smoking, and I can't even sit outside without breathing in their smoke, or have a window open without their stinky cigarette smoke coming in my apartment. And then there is the issue of people letting their dogs run loose, running wild, despite the fact that there is a leash law in effect. And these dogs are pooping up a storm and the people aren't picking it up. Then there is the issue of recycling, I myself recycle, but most of my neighbors don't. Minor grievance compared to the smoking and dog poop, but it is a grievance nonetheless. What is wrong with you people! Recycling makes good sense! You don't have to be a radical environmentalist liberal to see the merits of recycling. Recycling is the most conservative, logical, level headed, and common sense sign of intelligent life. It's smart to recycle, okay? I question the intelligence of any person who continues to throw their glass bottles and aluminum cans in the trash, when there is a recycling bin just a few feet away!

I'm happy to have gotten this off my chest. I feel somewhat better now. I forgot how good blogs are for this purpose, that of venting and complaining about whatever is pissing you off.

Does reading this add value to your life? Maybe not, but what it does show I feel is that writing a blog post about your annoyances and grievances can have potential therapeutic value at least for the person writing the post. Putting the problem into words on the screen helps to broaden your perspective of the problem, to see whether there is a clear solution, and if not, and you must live with the problem with no viable solution, perhaps you'll see that getting upset serves no constructive value to yourself.

Anger is a catalyst, it gets you moving to take action, but if there is no action that you can take that will actually solve the problem, getting angry isn't going to help anything. In this case, the anger turns inward and will just end up making you sick. Writing about your problem, particularly those in which there is no clear solution, helps to dissipate the anger so that it's no longer causing you harm. If it still bothers you in the future continue to write about it, and explore all possibilities for a solution to the problem. You either fight or flee. Unless you've got an army on your side, or the blessing of the criminal justice system, starting fights and calling people names rarely works, but usually makes the problem worse. So unless you've got the law enforcing the solution of your problems, sometimes you just got to give up, and get the hell out of dodge. If you have problems with your neighbors, you either put up with it, or you move somewhere else.

For instance, if you can't stop the smokers, then perhaps you just need to find a community that doesn't allow smoking, or move into a house with enough land around it not to be bothered by your neighbors. It appears that some places are hopeless, full of hopeless people, who are never going to change, and instead of trying to change them, it's better just to leave.

My Experience of the Kindle E-book Reader

So, I finally got a Kindle. I got the Paperwhite on sale $30 bucks cheaper a few weeks ago. I had such high hopes for it, especially eager to utilize its built in dictionary, note taking highlighter, and vocabulary builder flashcards, features that are still kind of cool, but would be better if the word definitions had audio playback, to help with pronunciation and retention.

I figured I haven't been reading much lately this past year, I thought that maybe having a Kindle would help me read more, by making books more accessible and more portable and perhaps easier to read.

But after extensive time trying it out, I found that despite what I've read to the contrary, if you plan to read more than an hour on it at a time, at least in my case, it causes more eyestrain than a traditional paper book.

You see I'm the kind of person that when I get into a book I like I will read it for several hours at a time. There have been days when I've had the free time and wasn't working that I would spend twelve hours a day reading. I wouldn't recommend doing that with a Kindle.

Overall I'm finding that I prefer traditional paper books to e-readers. There will be an upcoming post delving deeper into the particulars but for now I will will keep it simple.

Regular books are easier on the eyes, but not always easier on the budget. This is where the e-book excels. After the initial investment of the e-book reader, you'll find that e-books are generally cheaper. I'm on an extremely frugal budget and only like to buy books that I intend to keep in my permanent collection, or intend to read more than once, anything else I check out from the library and read for free.

Well, sometimes I want to read a book that isn't available at the library, and don't want to wait around months for an interlibrary loan to come through, but in the meantime can find an e-book version online either for free or priced significantly cheaper than the equivalent paper version, that's where the Kindle comes in. In this regard it's already paid for itself.

I was able to download three technical textbooks for free which would have cost me no less than 30 bucks a piece used. So in this regard I considered the $90 spent on the Kindle to be money well spent. But as far as using it to read fiction, particularly taking advantage of the extensive collection of thousands of public domain classics available for download, such as Moby Dick by Herman Melville or War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, for that I think I will be sticking to the traditional paper version, something that pretty much any decent public library has.

So to recap, the Kindle is great for reading books that aren't available at the library, but are available for download online, either for free or at a cheaper price than the equivalent traditional paper version. It's also a great way to preview a book before you buy it or before you check it out from the library. Being lighter and more portable than most books, it's great for reading bulky textbooks, technical or reference material, and also makes a good travel companion, where you can easily read a thousand page book on the go without being bogged down by a heavy bag.

But in every other circumstance, traditional paper books are clearly the winner, for the simple reason that they cause less eyestrain. Despite all the improvements having been made in this regard, paper is still easier on the eyes than digital screens, especially if you plan to read for hours at a time like I do. So I see the Kindle more as a supplemental tool of my reading repertoire, and not as a replacement for the traditional book.

An Oldie but a Goldie

From September 16, 2013:

"No matter what I do, wherever I find myself in my life, as far as where I'm living, where I'm working, and how things are going, whether things are good or bad, that no matter what, I will never let myself go. That I will never allow myself to get fat and flabby and out of shape and old before my time. That I will never allow myself to consistently engage in unhealthy eating habits. There may be occasional moments of weakness, of engaging in bad habits, junk food, fast food, getting drunk, smoking (not that I do, but just saying for the sake of example), that if I mess up and make poor choices, if I do something I ordinarily swear against, knowing it to be wrong, unhealthy, unwise, that I will correct myself as soon as possible."

Yes, four years later, it is still relevant.

Although, I am a bit troubled by the implications of not letting go, as stated in the introductory statement. There is a certain vanity and egotism in being attached to the pursuit of perfection, which I find unsavory. That's not really what I meant, though it could be a Freudian slip, I only meant that I am devoted to a path of clean healthy living, and not letting myself depart from the path of clean healthy living, which also means ethical living, and admitting that sometimes I falter, but when I do I am usually quick to adjust myself back to where I wish to be.

In other words, I recognize when I've done wrong, and I'm quick to recover. Despite the occasional vice of having french fries and twinkies, believe me it rarely happens, but it has happened on occasion, among other things that are contrary to what I believe in, I'm doing pretty good in the health and personal fitness department, but in the ethics department, I would say my biggest character fault is of being overly judgemental of others. Being angry and bitter and looking down on others that don't share the same ideal of clean healthy ethical living.

That is a major pitfall for those on the path of personal excellence, is how do you manage not get a big head, not to become overly prideful, self-important, not to look down with hatred or disgust on those who have succumbed to all the vices you yourself have overcome or are seeking to overcome? Hate the sin not the sinner? I have trouble with that. Nothing like living in the ghetto to find compassion and a feeling of goodwill for ALL of humanity than by living among the lowest of the low. Though that's probably the hardest thing in the world. It's easy to love people when you're living around like minded good people, but totally different story when you're living next door to violent criminals, rapists, pedophiles, gang bangers and drug addicts. I guess worse of all would be being in prison.

Being a good person surrounded by bad people would I suppose be a lot like being an angel in hell. How would one cope? I don't know. I guess, no matter what, you stick to your moral compass, the ideals you've committed yourself to, to the best of your ability, and that is what I'm trying to do.

Effortless Collage

I did a Google image search using the name of this blog plus my first name, and I got some interesting results, so I did a screen capture of it.

It's interesting because it makes a cool looking collage, but also because these pictures pretty much sum up what this blog is about:

• nature
• art
• bicycles
• books
• metaphysical ponderings

It's also nice touch that it includes a self-portrait, which represents the autobiographical, personal journal aspect of the blog, and a picture of my beautiful black cat, "the Big Guy" who passed away last year, showing my love for cats and all animals in general.

CCleaner Malware

Attention readers of this blog. I just found out about this and thought I would share in case you missed the latest news. If you use CCleaner, the free spyware scanner and removal tool, it has been hacked and infected with malware. I've been using it for years, and one of my computers was in fact infected, so it was quite a shock, just happy I caught it when I did.

From what I understand CCleaner is still a trustworthy utility, but you need to make sure you update to the latest version, and if you don't already have it download Malwarebytes to locate the trojan and remove it. It is important that you do this final step, because the CCleaner update in itself may not remove the malware.

Planning a Trip

What's been going on? Well not a whole lot. It's been hotter than hell the past four months and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight. Yet it will come, this I know, slowly but surely it will come, and when it does...

I've got big plans to do my first ever solo overnight bicycle tour, and I plan on documenting the progression here.

It's only been in the works for the past 15 years give or take. I bought my touring bicycle 13 years ago with big dreams of going on this epic across the country bicycle tour, but something always came up and it never happened. The problem is I was thinking too big. To me bicycle tour meant going on a long distance bicycle tour, and it never occurred to me that maybe I should try something more local, you know, longer than a day trip, packing like I'm going on a longer tour involving camping, but maybe just going overnight.

Well, the time has finally come. I've been a full-time bicycle commuter for about a year now, riding 50 miles a week to and from work as well as doing all my grocery shopping. I basically travel everywhere by bicycle, and feel I am physically prepared to go on my first overnight bicycle tour.

The only element needed for this recipe for adventure to work is cooler temperatures. Cooler but not cold, I'm thinking daily highs in the 70s to low 80s. You know normal summer temperatures in most parts of North America not in the desert Southwest. We get those kind of temps here in the fall and winter. Our summers are 100s from May to September. October is a transition month. So I'm thinking November. But we will see. Could be sooner, could be later, but it most certainly will be this year.

I've got a great destination in mind. Somewhere I've never been to but is only 25 miles away. I'm really looking forward to it. And am working on picking out my gear, figuring out the most ideal pack system, and will most certainly be posting a gear list with pictures and weights. Besides the ride I will most certainly be looking forward to the solitude of nature that has been missing from my life this past year. A solo camping trip is exactly what I need. I'm missing that at my current residence, didn't know how good I had it back when I first started this blog. Where I was living then was like a nature preserve compared to where I am now, and those early posts reflect that.

Being without trees and dark skies to see the stars, having too much noise and too much light, dims the spiritual sight. So this overnight bicycle tour will be much more than just an overnight bicycle tour, it will be a spiritual pilgrimage, surely with its share of trials and tribulations, it won't be easy, but it will be good.

Living Frugally, Staying Healthy

It's a been a rough summer. This is the first year of my life that I rode my bicycle everyday regardless of the weather. We had a period in June that was crazy hot, a heat wave even by Arizona standards, so hot that some flights in and out of the airport were grounded. It was this summer, the summer of 2017, that I rode my bicycle in 116 degree heat, on multiple days, the hottest temperature I've ever experienced.

The only thing that made it bearable, the only thing that made it possible for me to endure the three mile ride in 116 degree heat, was to completely submerge my bicycle attire in cold water, in addition to wearing a long sleeve sunshirt also soaked in cold water, plus sunglasses, sun visor under my helmet, wet bandana over my face, and drinking lots of water and gatorade. The wet clothing made all the difference, it was a lifesaver. Without it I don't think I would have made it.

Why do I do this? Why do I ride my bike even when the weather is so bad that it is dangerous?

A lot of it has to do with money, I choose to live frugally, for the sake of buying more time, which next to health, is the most precious commodity on earth. Riding a bicycle is a huge factor in my strategy of saving money. I've got it set up so that I can fully support myself working part-time, and what makes this possible more than any other factor is the fact that I don't drive a car and that I don't have health insurance.

Riding a bike saves me a lot of money, but it also helps that I love riding a bike. In fact, even if I came into a large sum of money, and didn't need to live frugally, I would still ride my bike, I would still live car-free. That's a fact. Maybe I'd hire a driver from time to time, but for the most part, I honestly don't like cars, and prefer riding the bike to riding in a car.

Another reason for riding my bike everyday of the year regardless of the weather, is that I hate taking the city bus. I absolutely hate it. Yes, I would rather endure riding my bicycle in 116 degree, rather than take the bus. It really is that unpleasant.

But honestly the only thing that makes it possible for me to live this way, to ride my bicycle all year round as my primary mode of transportation, is the fact that I am healthy enough to do so.

If I wasn't healthy enough to ride my bike, I would be forced to take the bus, and I would be forced to work more hours to pay for the added expenses of transportation and having health insurance and all the bills associated with the loss of health. In other words, a primary component of living simply and frugally as a strategy for optimizing quality of life, via increased free time, is staying healthy.

Being healthy is the essential ingredient, the primary factor that makes it possible to experience prosperity with less money and more time.

If you lose your health, all the time in the world suddenly isn't worth much at all. Having abundant time, but little money, is only worth something if you are healthy enough to appreciate what you have and to put the time to good use.

It is possible to experience prosperity by living simply and frugally with little money, but only if you are healthy. It's really the most important thing on earth. Without your health, nothing else matters.

Blogging as a Life Changing Tool

Nice tidbit from Vagabond Journey, a blogger I've been reading for years, who started out as a rough draft amateur blogger with typos galore and hardly any readers, and has since become a professional international journalist:

"A blog is a testing ground for incomplete ideas. It is a place to shoot off random observations, opinions, and less-than-conclusive conclusions. This is done for a reason: putting such raw ideas and observations out there is a way to see how well they hold up, it’s a way of testing how far they can go.

Sometimes doing this is just going to make you look amateur, but sometimes it will lead you to somewhere you would never get to otherwise."

I agree. Thanks for the inspiration, Wade. You inspired a blog post!

For those so inclined a blog can be a personal creativity and brainstorming think tank laboratory, a tool for self-improvement, and creative insight. You write about what you're thinking, what you've done or are planning on doing, and seeing it on paper, or in this case, the screen, is like putting the ideas under a microscope, your thoughts are magnified for closer inspection, anything off base or unclear will be visible for all eyes to see, most importantly your own.

You see a glimpse of a thought photographed in words, and you can than proceed to evaluate its validity, how well it worked, how true it is, was it written from the heart and with a clear conscience, and also was it clearly communicated, is anything missing, or embellished, could the transmission of this idea be improved, and where do we go from here, can this idea be developed further, should we even bother, or are there more important avenues of thought to explore? Sometimes you reach a dead end, and you just have to let it go, change course, do something different, think something new.

All that can occur from the blog. It's a personal experience that by way of having an audience becomes a shared experience. The blogger transmits the information, the audience receives it. Reading this has a subtle influence on your state of mind, which in turn may stimulate changes in thinking. Whether agreeing or disagreeing, all parties reading become participants in the blogging as creativity brainstorming think tank laboratory.

Having an audience puts your ideas out there, makes you accountable, that what you say has consequences, that if you say something nasty or untrue, be prepared for a negative response. But if you thoroughly believe in what you said, in what you wrote, if what you wrote was written in the clarity of truth and a clear conscience, the resistance will only make you stronger. The truth has the strength to support its own weight, and isn't dependent on other people believing in it or accepting it to lift it up, it's self-supporting. But if there is any problem with what you said, if it's not true, if it's flawed, it shines forth for all to see under the illumination of the screen, and it is subject to either correction or rejection.

Either way it's a laboratory, an interactive diary, read by people from all walks of life. And that is what makes it exciting. Knowing that anyone could be reading, and knowing that you are having an influence on the lives of other people, bestows a certain power, and with this power comes responsibility. When you write in a blog you are accountable for what you write in a way that would never occur if you were writing in a private diary, and that's what makes it potentially more powerful.

This is true of all published writers, whether professional or amateur, but in the case of the blog, what sets it apart from professional peer reviewed writing, is that this medium is most suited to experimentation, it doesn't have to be perfect so there's more freedom to explore. I think of the blog as a rough draft. Every post is a rough draft. And that's why it is most befitting to refer to this medium as a creative brainstorming idea generating think tank. You don't have to worry about it getting perfect the first time around. Write what you want to say, if it's not right, write it again. If after repeated attempts you just can't seem to get it right, it's like you've reached a dead end, well maybe you just need to take a break, or maybe you need to go a different way, explore a different avenue of thought. Why not?

This is where the blog excels. Herein lies infinite possibility. Use the blog as a means to change your life. Don't like the life you're living, write a new life worth living into existence. Explore the possibilities in writing. On the other side of things, if you love your life, you're experiencing success and prosperity, write about it. Write about what works and doesn't work for you. Write about whatever you want, but just know that writing in a blog can be a useful tool for stimulating your life in a positive way. And that's what I aim to do.

In Defense of Secrecy

Reading a fun book called Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. The subject being among other things longevity and immortality, which if you know me based on my writings here, is right up my alley.

Anyway, I found this fun passage to quote, which seems in my mind to be a pretty good defense of secrecy, of why some things shouldn't be open source and freely available to any fool who lacks the wisdom and integrity to properly understand and apply what they learn in the way that it was intended. Doing so opens the doors of such wisdom being misused and abused in such a way that it no longer resembles wisdom.

From Jitterbug Perfume:

"Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else. So, a man seeking knowledge must be first tested to determine if he is worthy. From what I have gathered, rudeness on the part of the master is the first phase of the test.

"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, than he may deem you fit to hear his views of things?

"Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if your are polite where is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass."