Hello, thank you for joining me today for Give Him 15, and the title of today's post is,

Don't Grow Cynical. I've always enjoyed the satirical humor of Mark Twain.

This was a pen name, of course, came from his days as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River.

Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river,

and it's constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags and rocks.

Piloting also gave Twain his pen name from Mark Twain, the leadsman's cry for a measured depth of

two fathoms, 12 feet, which was safe water for a steamboat.

One of my all-time favorite quotes of Twain's, of Twain is his favorite account, or excuse me,

let's try this again. One of my all-time favorite quotes of Twain is his account of the nere-say-di optimist

fighting a man of superior size, strength, and skill.

The unyielding optimist said, quote,

thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth,

I threw him heavily to the ground on top of me, end quote.

You gotta love it.

Regarding the often Byzantine, torturous, and discombobulated world of politics,

Twain once said, quote,

Politicians and diapers must be changed often and for the same reason."

End quote.

To be fair, there are adults in government.

It's just that those in diapers are so self-serving,

misguided, dishonest, and smelly, that they often give bad names to all.

And sadly, the rankness drives many people away from the political process. Don't fall into this trap. Stay engaged in the governmental process.

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