Copabanana
Well-Known Member
I used the expression today, "you fill the bill." It felt just right to say it in this circumstance. I felt compelled to look at the real meaning and origin of the phrase.
First I will note what I wanted to say with the phrase.
I wanted to tell this person that she fit what I needed and wanted. That when I interacted with her I felt complete.
I have several people in my life like this. M is one. He is my principle one.
So this is what I read about "fill the bill" when I googled it:
Originally a “bill” was any piece of writing, especially a legal document (we still speak of bills being introduced into Congress in this sense). More narrowly, it also came to mean a list such as a restaurant “bill of fare” (menu) or an advertisement listing attractions in a theatrical variety show such as might be posted on a “billboard.” In nineteenth-century America, when producers found short acts to supplement the main attractions, nicely filling out an evening’s entertainment, they were said in a rhyming phrase to “fill the bill.” People who associate bills principally with shipping invoices frequently transform this expression, meaning “to meet requirements or desires,” into “fit the bill.” They are thinking of bills as if they were orders, lists of requirements. It is both more logical and more traditional to say “fill the bill.”
I see these elements that make sense to me:
chosen.
completion.
orders or requirements.
meeting expectations and desires.
So I was thinking when I read the origin: What does it say about me?
I mean that this person or that person I have selected completes me, meets completely my desires and expectations at that moment, what can I learn about myself by that choice?
I will speak about M here.
Absolute Integrity *Tell me what you really think, M.
Absolute loyalty
Hard-working and dogged in meeting his goals.
Absolute compassion.
Does not ever hold a grudge. Forgiving to the max.
Always believing in the capacity for change and growth. Even by people who have wronged them.
Always going for the element in the story that gives hope.
Realistic. Not in any way a dreamer. But a believer.
He believes in me.
He believes in my growth.
He believes in my goodness. My capacity to be better. To do better.
Imagine what it feels like to have chosen a person like him as filling the bill.
So what can I infer about myself, by my choice of him, after a lifetime of refusing to choose?
M gives me the hope to believe. Not in myself. But in something beyond myself. I never, ever had this before.
I fear losing him because I fear that I need him to be this person who can believe in something beyond her own efforts, her own integrity. Not to believe in the integrity of others, but in integrity as an absolute. I am thinking Aristotle here who visited us on another thread. He believed in ethics as defining a person, a life.
Like Insane tells herself and us, Aristotle believed that a life, a person could not be understood until the end, the end of the story. She and he warn us, do not write the end of the story. It is hubris, I am seeing.
Maybe that is why I am so interested in the concept of late, of Dying Everyday, which may be the title or portion of one of my next books. I want to reach that space of absolute integrity, oneness, sometimes called flow, everyday. The place that all of religion and spirituality and creativity calls its own.
I want to complete everyday to say goodbye with peace and acceptance and gratefully begin again, from that space. Each new day I am offered.
I am finding such a love for M that I feel inspired to write poetry. So my book may have to wait for a next life.
COPA
First I will note what I wanted to say with the phrase.
I wanted to tell this person that she fit what I needed and wanted. That when I interacted with her I felt complete.
I have several people in my life like this. M is one. He is my principle one.
So this is what I read about "fill the bill" when I googled it:
Originally a “bill” was any piece of writing, especially a legal document (we still speak of bills being introduced into Congress in this sense). More narrowly, it also came to mean a list such as a restaurant “bill of fare” (menu) or an advertisement listing attractions in a theatrical variety show such as might be posted on a “billboard.” In nineteenth-century America, when producers found short acts to supplement the main attractions, nicely filling out an evening’s entertainment, they were said in a rhyming phrase to “fill the bill.” People who associate bills principally with shipping invoices frequently transform this expression, meaning “to meet requirements or desires,” into “fit the bill.” They are thinking of bills as if they were orders, lists of requirements. It is both more logical and more traditional to say “fill the bill.”
I see these elements that make sense to me:
chosen.
completion.
orders or requirements.
meeting expectations and desires.
So I was thinking when I read the origin: What does it say about me?
I mean that this person or that person I have selected completes me, meets completely my desires and expectations at that moment, what can I learn about myself by that choice?
I will speak about M here.
Absolute Integrity *Tell me what you really think, M.
Absolute loyalty
Hard-working and dogged in meeting his goals.
Absolute compassion.
Does not ever hold a grudge. Forgiving to the max.
Always believing in the capacity for change and growth. Even by people who have wronged them.
Always going for the element in the story that gives hope.
Realistic. Not in any way a dreamer. But a believer.
He believes in me.
He believes in my growth.
He believes in my goodness. My capacity to be better. To do better.
Imagine what it feels like to have chosen a person like him as filling the bill.
So what can I infer about myself, by my choice of him, after a lifetime of refusing to choose?
M gives me the hope to believe. Not in myself. But in something beyond myself. I never, ever had this before.
I fear losing him because I fear that I need him to be this person who can believe in something beyond her own efforts, her own integrity. Not to believe in the integrity of others, but in integrity as an absolute. I am thinking Aristotle here who visited us on another thread. He believed in ethics as defining a person, a life.
Like Insane tells herself and us, Aristotle believed that a life, a person could not be understood until the end, the end of the story. She and he warn us, do not write the end of the story. It is hubris, I am seeing.
Maybe that is why I am so interested in the concept of late, of Dying Everyday, which may be the title or portion of one of my next books. I want to reach that space of absolute integrity, oneness, sometimes called flow, everyday. The place that all of religion and spirituality and creativity calls its own.
I want to complete everyday to say goodbye with peace and acceptance and gratefully begin again, from that space. Each new day I am offered.
I am finding such a love for M that I feel inspired to write poetry. So my book may have to wait for a next life.
COPA