To respect for women

What's wrong with this picture?

I missed my weekend post (I fell asleep writing it), and I don't have time to finish it now.  Last night I did an ab workout and fell asleep on my yoga mat..so I woke up at 4 a.m. today, on Valentine's Day, to finish everything.

As a make-up post, here is a quote from "A Soldier of the Great War", by my current favorite author, Mark Helprin:

"When you walk through the city in the morning, what do you think about?" Alessandro asked his father.

"Many things."

"Do you think of the city itself?"

"No.  I used to, but I've had a profession for a number of years, and it has mastered me.  A profession is like a great snake that wraps itself around you.  Once you are enwrapped, you are in a slow fight for the rest of your life, and the lightness of youth leaves you.  You don't have time, for example, to think about the city as you are walking through it.

"Unless you make it your profession."

"Then you're an architect, and you're always thinking of how to get clients."

"But what if you were to choose the profession of looking at things to see their beauty, to see what they meant, to find in the world as much of the truth as you could find?"

"For that you need to be independently wealthy."

"What about a professorship?"

"Of what?"

"Aesthetics."

"Aesthetic?" the father asked. "That's ridiculous.  You'll live like a slave for twenty-five years.  Better to go into the Church."

"I would rather die than live without women," Alessandro said.

I love this book, and this conversation especially.  First of all, the idea of the lightness of youth.  I'm obsessed with finding a way to maintain a child-like wonder about and interest in the world we have been given, and I'm determined to fight this "great snake" as Alessandro's father describes it.  That ties into the picture above.  If you don't think that's funny, I think you've lost the battle.

It also addresses practicality.  Being a truth-seeker is great, but in order to survive/accomplish anything, you need capital.  That usually means money, which means working.  This ties into a running conversation I'm having with a couple 7th-grade boys... They are the type who like to ask "Why are we studying this?"  "How is this going to help me in life?" and so on.  It's been frustrating, because I actually have whole conversations with them where I explain exactly why (from a few different perspectives, even), and they will agree with my reasoning, then they will ask the same question a few weeks later.  These boys are all about sports and video games, and they think if adults just left them alone to do what they want, they would be happy.  

A few of them come hang out with me in the mornings when I'm supervising the 5th-graders.  My newest response for them today is going to be this: "Okay, I get it.  You'd rather be somewhere else.  Do you think the thing that I want to be doing most in the world is sitting here explaining the same thing to you over and over?"

They will have to realize the answer is "no" (possibly a mind-blowing concept — adults would often rather just have fun too?!), and hopefully it will lead to a good conversation about the way the world works, duty, responsibility and so on.  

Lastly, the conversation addresses women.  I love Alessandro's response to his father's suggestion.  He makes the jump from the Church to women without a moment's hesitation.  He's clearly thought about this before.  I'm tempted to agree with him.  

Here is where I draw a connection between between booty, respect for women, truth-seeking, and Valentine's Day........maybe I'll come up with something later in the day?

Did you know that today is also the state of Arizona's hundredth anniversary?