Your SuperPower: Infallibility?

Infallibility would be something, wouldn't it? For those following the news, the Pope was hard pressed to explain himself recently when he "enraged Muslims in a speech a week ago in Germany quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Not to parse doctrine, (why would an infallible Pope have to soft-peddle or apologize?) I can't help but wrestle with infallibility for myself.

To be truly infallible a person would be incapable of failure or err. Wow, what I wouldn't give for that. To never make a mistake? Geez. It would seem, on the surface, a charmed life, eh? (Imagine a politician or [other] salesman who might be infallible--potent stuff!) Talk about someone to be trusted. "I'm putting my nest egg where Bob the Infallible banks, his investments are infallible." What a spouse an infallible person might make.

Then again, being infallible would be a tough role. It would be challenging to bite my tongue and resist saying, "I told you so" all the time. It would be frustrating when people ignored my advice or did not follow-through on my recommendations. It would just flat be tough being right all the time.

I guess I'm a person who revels in my mistakes. I learn from them. They're what make me...well, human. How could I learn anything if I were incapable of making mistakes to learn from? What a conundrum.

And while it might be nice to lean on an infallible person sometimes, I think they'd get to be tiresome company. I like a good hearty debate with friends. I wallow in the gray matter between the black and white of things. An infallible person would not see any grayscale, would they? They'd see (and say) it like it is, and that would be that. (Come to think of it, I've known too many people who must imagine themselves to be infallible...hmmm.)

I guess I don't envy the Pope, or anyone else who's burdened with the expectation of infallibility. Sure, a fella could hedge, maybe, and say, "Well, I'm only infallible in matters of X," but would that really buy you any slack? (I have my doubts, but when it comes to some definitions and labels, I'm something of an absolutist.) If I had to carve out my niche of infallibility, what could it be in? What would I want it to be in? Absolute certainty is attractive to some people, but...really...why? Where's the fun in that?

My greatest challenge is parenting, but I sure would not want to be an infallible parent, unless I could be a secretively infallible parent. Pity the child who had to live within the shadow of a know-it-all parent.

So I guess I should take more stock in being less-than-perfect, for not necessarily knowing everything. There's something to be said for being a work in progress. Those days when I wish I had all the answers, when I'm floundering over indecisions, I should just reckon with being human, after all.