All my life I have been trying to see other points of view as placed on the table by my peers. Oh, oh, I'm only three sentences into this thing and I have already admitted that I have PEERS. Now, seriously I want to assure you that I have no problem being the second most intelligent person on the planet. Believe me, I am open to the possibility that I may some day meet the first most intelligent one. In fact, at my age it might just make me feel better because it would remove a lot of the pressure.
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Enough of that, already. I grew up in a house that was thickly populated by opinionated people. Let me give you some examples. You'll get a kick out of some of this stuff. Some of you have heard it before. Possibly, many times.
1. He who loses his language loses his faith.
2. He who knows two languages is worth two people.
3. To live with people you gotta be people.
4. My brothers got a lot of education, but they don't know anything.
5. I hated school but I did all right.
6. Now this guy is going to be left handed.
7. When is my sister going to buy a dress that has the front going up to her neck?
8. The pope speaks 8 languages. [He really did. Pius XII. I thought he had to]
9. You have to have convictions and stick to them, no matter what.
10. You have to do better in school. = [Get better grades, so you'll be first in class]
All of these opinions are important. They are all contributing truths to the making of a serious and valuable member of society. You can tell that they must be important because I remember them. Each of them has a piece of the soul of the people who followed God's grace in getting me to where I am. These thoughts serve as the basis for how I live my life. The interesting part is that though they are still with me, others have squeezed them off the top ten chart. If you reflect on your list of values, you will perhaps find the same truth. In fact I don't even have to tell you that not all of these are equally important. I don't have to tell you that it might look to you like some of them are outright false.
Let me give you a short comment for what happened to some of them along the way.
1. This is true, to an extent. As far as language and faith are tied to culture, it is true. No too important now
2. This is also partially true, but I have never benefited economically from being a polyglot. Socially, yes.
3. This too political for my taste. I respect others, but I don't do things just to be socially accepted
4. Education is VERY important. EFR Dion didn't think so. He was a brilliant self-made man. He would lend his car to his brothers and they always returned it with an empty tank. To him that was ignorance of the highest form.
5. She did turn out all right. She married the right guy. I have a dear person in my life who hated school. She is brilliantly self-made too. And she married the right, self-made guy. So who needs school? Bill Gates?
6. A mistake. My brother and I wanted to have a lefty so we set out to make the baby of the family the one. Don't do this.
7. Modesty was a big rule. It is important, no matter what the denizens of Hollywood wear. I still believe in it. I have another blog where I wrote something about this topic. Maybe I will float it out for you.
8. Languages are important. Not for economic gain, but for social, spiritual, emotional and intellectual comfort. The pope does not have to speak 8 languages. John XXIII knew only 2, Italian and French.
9. This sounds great on the surface, but even convictions have to be modulated. Modulated means molded to fit the changing circumstances, but not abandoned out of a loss of internal focus and self-determination.
10. I never believed this. It was and is still, a cause of friction between me and the dearest beings I know. Tough! The focus of school is not to be valedictorian, but to open the mind and make it rich. Period.
See, we keep our values with us. They constantly help us to be who we are. No matter how long we live and no matter where we have lived across the decades. Some of us have been steeped in other cultures and learned to modulate [that word again] our values and rearrange their position of importance in our lives, but they nevertheless remain anchors to keep us even. It seems appropriate for me to close this ramble by the famous saying: "The more we change, the more we stay the same." Some Pagan philosopher said that many centuries ago. I think he is right.
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