fractal007
Senior Member
since 06-01-2000
Posts 1946
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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0 posted 02-16-2009 01:49 AM
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I watched the pragmatic, practical, prosaic student of life as he put on a show for me to teach me why I ought to be thankful for my lot in this life and not to complain. As is my wont, I focused on the structure rather than on the content - thereby missing the mark.
As he did the work and refused to let me help lest I, in my lack of practical know how, screw something up, he swore up and down about the chinese workers who'd likely been responsible for constructing the bloody sink that wouldn't budge. I hated listening to the tirade. It was pure racism - nothing more, nothing less. But I knew that it was also a hard lesson in life for me. Had I grown up in a different culture, had the lack of opportunity he did, would I have been any different?
I think back now to a philosopher I read recently. I recall his gentle dialogue with himself. "Here is someone who irks me in this way. What can he teach me? How can he strengthen me?"
Here was a handyman, bitter from all the years of toil his own father had imposed upon him despite the fiery contents of his mind. There was the angry tirade about the migrant workers, or the Chinese factory assembly lines. What did it do to strengthen me?
Thank you, God, for giving me the opportunity to get an education, and for instilling in me such a passionate curiosity and also the opportunities to slake it. Among so many of the so-called practical is the ethos that curiosity and thought are a second sex to be reviled for its temptations - a pleasure to be avoided. Yet why have you cursed them with it?
Sex I understand. It's there for the sake of procreation. But without curiosity and ingenuity we could still survive - as cavemen. Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough to be born, eat, sleep, have sex, make children, and then die?
Why do I want something more? Why am I tortured by such a ravenous desire?Life's short. Think hard!
Me!
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