Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Thought for today ...


Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
- Heraclitus

4 comments:

  1. Susan B.9:18 AM

    Have you ever seen a man playing a video game? All over America, right now, you can see your aphorism being enacted.

    The problem is one of subtlety. Women get annoyed when their 30-something beaux are playing video games instead of helping with the chores. Yet we admire the man who is painstakingly building a model schooner out of little pieces of wood he's whittled himself.

    In my opinion, men are always boys at heart, and sometimes their playfulness is admirable and adorable and other times it's annoying. (My 61-year-old boy spent yesterday fixing the gears on his 15-year-old boy's bike, and then both boys took turns riding it. Another day, however, they mixed cornstarch and water to make some weird substance that is both hard and liquid and I nearly went through the roof when I heard them plotting to fill the bathtub with it. Boys!!!)

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  2. I suspect women are always girls at heart as well. But I think the absorption in something for its own sake and not for what one can get out of it is what Heraclitus was referring to, and one sees it in girls playing with dolls as well as boys playing with trucks and cars.

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  3. Susan B.11:02 AM

    See, I would say women are always mothers at heart -- whether or not they've had children. That's what the playing with dolls is really all about.

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  4. I hadn't thought of that - why would I? I'm a guy! - but you're probably right. Of course, you can now fend off the feminists.

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