Identifying “One True Way” Practitioners

This is old. I know this. This topic has been addressed in lots of ways by lots of different people. Maybe I don’t even have anything new to say about it. Nevertheless, I do have stuff to say about it, and by golly, I’m gonna, so there!

So, here we go.
 
 

• One True Way |ˈwən ˈtɹuː ˈweɪ|
  noun (pl. -s)
   
  1.   A philosophy incorporating the assumptions that any particular belief, outlook, perspective, opinion or feeling is alone in its validity and accuracy, and is universally applicable to all without exception.

  2.   A philosophy incorporating the belief that any skill, activity, task, or lifestyle may only be correctly performed, accomplished, completed, or supported by the exclusive use of a specific set of ideal methods.

  This term may frequently be encountered amongst the BDSM community and may also be found within the gamer community. There is no walk of life, occupation, or circumstance which excludes practitioners of this philosophy   (whether the practitioners know it by this name or not).

  All men are submissive.   |   A true submissive never tops from the bottom.   |   All submissive men are foot fetishists.   |   Pure lifestyle dominants always permanently mark their submissives.   |   Only true geeks can code scripts and/or software.   |   All real Irish traditional flute players only play unkeyed wooden flutes.   |   True Texas cowboys only wear Wrangler jeans.

   

• One True Way•er |ˈwən ˈtɹuː ˈweɪ.ər|
  noun (pl. -s)
   
  A practitioner of the One True Way philosophy.

  Characteristic identifying behviours can include:

  • unsolicited persistent advising
  • personal support for the methods advocated
  • inexperience with applying those methods in face-to-face relationships
  • poor social skills
  • emotively argumentative, confrontational, and competitive
  • inexperience with long term sexual relationships
  • excuses for why their methods are still valid even though they’ve never been tested in relationships over time
  • a tendency to blame potential friends or partners for declining to either share their beliefs, or embark on a friendship or relationship with them
  • difficulties with tolerating, celebrating, and/or embracing diversity
  • disparaging diverse practices, interests, methods, and goals which differ from their own
  • expounding at length about the superiority of their advocated (often untested in-the-flesh) methods
  • Faith in their chosen ideal methods persisting in the face of all information to the contrary
  • persistent unsolicited attempts to persuade or convert others
  • oblivious to, denial of, and/or denouncing being a practitioner of the One True Way philosophy, whilst at the same time espousing it   (see hypocrism)

   
   
  Variations

  True Way – |ˈtɹuː.ˈweɪ| noun
  True Path – |ˈtɹuː.ˈpæθ | noun
  One True Path – |ˈwən.ˈtɹuː.ˈpæθ | noun

   
   
  Unofficial And Informal Etymology

  • This phrase is   old.   I mean   really   old.   We’re talking appeared-in-other-languages-first, in some year BCE old.   From everything I can gather during my as yet cursory wander through the internet, this phrase began its life in Buddhism, which itself began around 500 BCE.
  • In future I may complete this definition with a more thorough study of just how the phrase in question came to be used in the way I’m defining here.   But I can’t do that right now because I’ve got a whole queue of posts lining up, all clamouring to be written, and I’d like to get this published sometime before 2009.

  Seriously.

  • In my efforts to pretend to do proper real research   (and be a proper real true researcher),   I have duly included some “official” etymology of the separate words themselves below, just to tide you over til I get the rest of it done.

  (no promises, mind)

  • There.   That’ll just have to do you til then   (if ever).

   
   
  Etymology   (official)

  • one   cardinal number
    ORIGIN Old English ān, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch een and German ein, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin unus. The initial w sound developed before the 15th cent. and was occasionally represented in the spelling; it was not accepted into standard English until the late 17th cent.
  • true   adjective
    ORIGIN Old English trēowe, trȳwe [steadfast, loyal] ; related to Dutch getrouw, German treu, also to truce.
  • way   noun
    ORIGIN Old English weg, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch weg and German Weg, from a base meaning [move, carry.]

   
  Etymology (official) quoted from
  Dictionary.app
  Version 1.0.2 (1.0.2)
  Copyright © 2005 Apple Computer, Inc.,
  All Rights Reserved.

 
 
ps:   This was my 50th post!   Yay me!   :D