The Pie at the Window

How much time does a person spend in the company of others … versus … time spent on our own? Is there a fair measure of such things? I suppose we could say 50/50 and work from there. When is it too much skewed to either one side? … ah! That's easy … when we can no longer stay alone with our thoughts or are uncomfortable in company.

A fine balance ought to bring a notion of sport between the individual and the social self. From the pen of Boris Pasternak we have the artistic comment, expressed through the ravenous Komarovsky that denounced Dr. Zhivago ( paraphrased ) as ' a man too given to self adulation and does not appreciate true beauty. They don't know how to appreciate women and will one day toss you away like a crushed flower.'

But there are other men who bring a devotion to the cause of beauty … so powerful … that in many ways they live their lives in adoring service of beauty. They make the point that the social engagement is what brings an individual out into the world. And when they do that with some subtle regret, we catch a little of their own past experience of the statuesque nature of individual self experience.

In the reported account of the relationship between Attila the Hun and the Roman General Aetius as reviewed by William Napier … the General in a fit of decision making regarding his personal welfare and the cause of the world, cries out (paraphrased) ' This is Rome you are talking about '... implying what that means to the posterity of the civilized world. He makes that comment to what might have been the last of the individualist genre in a barb like Attila.

We ask questions of a similar nature closer to home today in the freedom of decision making that civilization has brought to us. We may sometimes see that fine balance … of the original and independent thought of the undomesticated plainsman or bushmen of the world … and the social pillar of the e'cole de belle brought into our societies through the ecological adaptation of man to his environment.

In the movie ' The Life of Pi ' a kid had named a Bengal tiger ' Richard Walker.' In my own writings I referred to a man I ' knew of ' in my youth as the fiery hot-tempered Red Beard. I found out recently why he was hot tempered and it may be opportune at this time for me to announce to the male Caucasians of the world that the pie is out of the oven and is cooling at the window. Its begun. And I believe the world is increasingly coming to understand the nature of the esoteric responsibilities they undertake as their contribution to humanity.

Perhaps some day we can come to understand it better and bring a better expression to it … best suited to the incredibly profound nature of the responsibilities, its management and supervision and the subtle coincidences of ts ways. Sometimes we seem to walk on egg shells and sometimes we worry about what the neighbors might think … but we know this is more than a petty issue of same sex insinuations.

It is the stuff of life and we need to communicate it better beyond the covers of gay pride. And while we do that we may possibly consider new ways to inform the ladies … our partners in the life … how they themselves bring an added dimension to the issue. And then the children … whose relation to the issues may turn all the way around with regards to the understanding not only of gender but of race, God and social relations in the world. Happy New Year Mac! Have a good one.