Thoughts Before Dawn
Jun. 20th, 2006 05:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qos1. Loving acceptance is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other.
2. So is honest, respectful challenge.
3. Bodies are delicious, but meaningless to me unless you also expose and share your mind and soul.
4. Family is sacred.
5. Chivalry is not so much a 'masculine' virtue as it is a virtue of the powerful. The courtesy and self-restraint that are characterized as "chivalrous" only have meaning if they are exercised by one who is free, by status or strength, to abuse or otherwise take advantage of another.
6. I would enjoy and find more satisfaction in housework if it, like study, resulted in enduring gains, not a temporary victory over entropy.
7. Why is it that an increase in a community's affluence tends to decrease the value placed on Hospitality, instead of the other way around? (Actually, the answer "Because it becomes less urgent for survival" comes to mind.)
8. Q: Why did I invoke some of my avatars in email with one of my best male friends yesterday, instead of owning my conflicting impulses about going to work on Monday or taking an additional vacation day?
A: Because sex (not with him) was part of the subtext, and it felt more gracious and comfortable to express the possibilities and options through the shorthand of roleplaying characters than to be personal about it.
9. Which would I prefer: a full-time first-level project manager position in my department, or to remain Jeannie's assistant and expand my duties to include project management for her? Would the loss of the personal working relationship with her (the best part of my current job) more than compensate for the consistently higher challenge of a PM position, plus the release from being joined at the org chart with Miss V? Hurm. Put like that, the answer becomes obvious. And not because of Miss V (although obviously that's a huge consideration) but because of the challenge. My brain is slowly rotting away at my day job.
10. Be excellent to each other. And May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.
2. So is honest, respectful challenge.
3. Bodies are delicious, but meaningless to me unless you also expose and share your mind and soul.
4. Family is sacred.
5. Chivalry is not so much a 'masculine' virtue as it is a virtue of the powerful. The courtesy and self-restraint that are characterized as "chivalrous" only have meaning if they are exercised by one who is free, by status or strength, to abuse or otherwise take advantage of another.
6. I would enjoy and find more satisfaction in housework if it, like study, resulted in enduring gains, not a temporary victory over entropy.
7. Why is it that an increase in a community's affluence tends to decrease the value placed on Hospitality, instead of the other way around? (Actually, the answer "Because it becomes less urgent for survival" comes to mind.)
8. Q: Why did I invoke some of my avatars in email with one of my best male friends yesterday, instead of owning my conflicting impulses about going to work on Monday or taking an additional vacation day?
A: Because sex (not with him) was part of the subtext, and it felt more gracious and comfortable to express the possibilities and options through the shorthand of roleplaying characters than to be personal about it.
9. Which would I prefer: a full-time first-level project manager position in my department, or to remain Jeannie's assistant and expand my duties to include project management for her? Would the loss of the personal working relationship with her (the best part of my current job) more than compensate for the consistently higher challenge of a PM position, plus the release from being joined at the org chart with Miss V? Hurm. Put like that, the answer becomes obvious. And not because of Miss V (although obviously that's a huge consideration) but because of the challenge. My brain is slowly rotting away at my day job.
10. Be excellent to each other. And May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-20 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-21 04:44 am (UTC)The bit above was inspired by an exchange with
I keep mulling over the various issues raised by my Friend, the article he quotes, and his other friends. I certainly appreciate courtesy, but I dislike the idea of chivalry as a specifically-gendered virtue.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-21 09:48 am (UTC)Chivalry is very specifically a late medieval virtue and predicated on a set of relations between men and women that are not what we have- or are working towards- today.
At the back of it, I guess, hovering faintly, is the non-gendered, New Testament injunction to love your neighbour as yourself.
It shouldn't be too hard to work out a 21st century code of social behaviour based on thoughtfulness and respect but "chivalry" is probably not going to be the right word for it.
"Be excellent to one another, dudes!"
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-21 01:18 pm (UTC)What I find interesting is that despite being a virtue that really is specific to medieval warriors (and idealized ones at that), it remains so attractive today. Perhaps it's the popularity of stories of King Arthur, the Crusades, and various fairy tales set in a romantic medieval milieu.
In any case, I know that even though I feel strongly that it is based on social inequities that I find distasteful, I also feel somewhat churlish (another good medieval-based word, yes?) criticizing it. I felt no compunction at all a few weeks ago criticizing the practice of a man asking a woman's father for "permission" to marry her, but I do enjoy truly chivalrous behavior -- that is, respectful and courteous -- being directed at me. Of course, for me, truly chivalrous behavior on the part of a man in this day and age includes a willingness to be gracious about being the recipient of those same courtesies when extended by a woman.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-20 08:14 pm (UTC)That was my invocation at the wedding I officiated.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-21 07:57 am (UTC)...and Spiritual Direction? Has your recent home situation been pushing you toward a need to deal with more material priorities (like maybe a place of your own)?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-21 01:21 pm (UTC)That being the case, I have some good credit built up where I am, and I like the company and the people there (with the one notable exception, but a different position would take care of that issue).