Seduction...!
One of the language's more seductive words. Maybe because it conjures up images of wild hedonistic pleasures. And that's OK if that's what works for you. However, the word packs so many many different meanings. Let us count the ways:
* Beauty is always seductive to us. Both in its human and its aesthetic forms. Consider the classic human examples like Eve...Helen of Troy...Cleopatra...Dante's Beatrice...Napoleon's Josephine...Hollywood's Clara Bow, Lana Tuner, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Catherine Zeta Jone. Along with aesthetic ones like Parthenon...Mona Lisa...David...Beethoven's Fifth..."Gone With The Wind"...anything by Arthur Miller or Steven Spielberg
* Glory too is seductive. Who doesn't dream about noble achievements and grand honors? It's what lured Alexander to conquer half his world...Columbus to find a new world...Newton to fathom the mysteries of the world...Edison and Bell to create their breakthrough inventions...Pasteur, Curie and Salk to find cures...Grant and Lee and Patton to win battles. As a tiny subset to glory there is celebrity. Nobodys who thirst to become somebodys if for no other reasons than just being a somebody. Inane examples from Octomom to Paris Hilton clog the mind
* Power is especially seductive. The power of brawn or brain. In the first category, behold the plethora of bronzed athletes smacking hits, throwing passes, body-checking on ice. Their physical prowess mesmerizes the men who would be them; and the women who would have them. But there is also the power of brains. Great minds are wildly seductive to the onlooker. Ask the female of the species intrigued by the Orson Welles, Henry Kissingers, and Tony Blairs
* Laughter is particularly seductive to the young who are often too innocent to yet be grim. And thus the exponential growth of stand-up comedians, comedy clubs, comedy TV, and all things that keep us laughing so we don't have to start crying
A little seduction goes a long way in getting us through this ornery life. But if you've noticed, each of these is fleeting. Here today, long gone tomorrow! Very much like our appetites for them. Which brings us to the ancient emperor who ordered his wise men to scour the empire for the wisest words that could be used in both good times and bad. They returned with these: "And this too shall pass..."
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This was a good read before the weekend and the Sabbath Jack as it reminds me of the lessons to be taken from Ecclesiastes in that all things pass and nothing is "permanent" .... "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that [is] thy portion in [this] life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun." ... for indeed there are displays of behavior these days that forget ... "Vanity of Vanities - all is Vanity".
ReplyDeletePrecisely...! Vanities are so very human; yet so very fragile. As you and I know, with age comes the undeniable realization that the things of this world are thin stuff at best. Good sabbath, Barrie
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