DAMN, Ro.

clears throat, nervously

Something a little bit different. Seven drabbles on the current subject. Um, enjoy?

Seven

Grocery shopping is an exercise in futility, nowadays. For years the numbers on my scale have been creeping toward some unknown pinnacle. Every item in every aisle of the store has a label. “One hundred fifty calories from fat,” one announces. Put that back down. “Temperance,” I tell myself. “Low fat,” claims the next one. It uses a fat substitute, a cause of indigestion and diarrhea. I waffle, flavor or low-fat? Not looking at it, I snatch something off the shelf and into the cart. There’s no numbers on my scale anymore, only the word “gluttony” flashing across its face.

Fortitude is the strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage. Apathy and inactivity have no place in fortitude. Whether mental or physical, fortitude demands that something be done. The one thing about fortitude, that makes it fortitude, is that it’s hard. No taking the easy way out! Laziness and indolence are the hallmarks of sloth. But it’s hard to ignore injustice when confronted with it, hard to be weak when it’s necessary to be strong. It takes fortitude to descend to the level of sloth that makes it a sin. I’ll vote next year.

If I were to see justice, in all fairness, I’d have what I want. The job, the house, the life I’ve wanted to live for so long. It’s hard, sometimes, to realize I have a job, a condo, a life that has come to me through my efforts. Justice cares not for what you want and there’s nothing in the law that says I can have everything I want. Equity would see us all sharing the same things out of fair and equal right to claim them. Instead, justice begrudges me equity, leaving me to the burning envy of beggars.

They ask me in job interviews what my biggest personal flaw is. Most of the time, I tell them my lack of tact. It’s not strictly prudent to let them know your weak spot, but they do ask and, in all honor, I feel bound to tell them. I tell them because I expect them to know that while it may be my greatest flaw, it doesn’t mean that I am always tactless or that it cripples me. Self-awareness is probably my greatest strength. I know that my tactlessness arises out of anger, so I remain prudent. Except during interviews.

Sometimes, I go into churches to sit. I am not praying, I am not worshipping, I am not attending to a sermon, I’m just sitting. Sitting waiting for something I haven’t yet identified. No, I’m not looking for God to come fill me with anything: spirit, tongues, prophecies or seed. I sit in churches waiting to find faith, that absolute belief that something exists without proof. I take pride in my ability to understand the science that makes our universe behave the way it does. Pride, though, can be shaken. When I sit, I have faith that I still exist.

Once upon a time I hoped to be an archaeologist. Or a marine biologist. Even a physicist. I had hopes that I’d go to college and study a field that was glamorous, that would lead to grand discoveries that would put my name in the newspapers and on everyone’s lips. I was too young to realize that hopes based on self promotion weren’t ever fulfilled. Hope is for making the world better for everyone, not just for you. I didn’t understand greed until I was older, until it was too late to be any good for humanity, much less myself.

It was my ex-fiancé who taught me the difference between lust and love. Oh, he thought he knew love, but he was wrong. As I was wrong, too. He saw love as an intellectual abstract, a pure emotion with no involvement of bodies. I saw love as two bodies worshipping together at a common expression of desire for one another. We did but see each other through a glass, darkly. Two ideas opposed to each other, agape and eros; two parts with no whole. After he left, I realized we could never be together because neither of us knew charity.

In case anyone's interested, the seven sins are pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. The seven virtues are faith, hope, (continued...)

( continues...) charity, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

Sail, this:

Grocery shopping is an exercise in futility, anymore.

Reads oddly. anymore isn't the word there, I don't think. Nowadays, maybe?

OTOH, this:

Two ideas opposed to each other, agape and eros

made me extremely happy.

Yes, I think your choice scans better. Ima go change it.

Very thought provoking, Sail.

I particularly love "two bodies worshipping together."

Those are great. The "anymore" is a construction my East Texas (now San Diego) grandmother uses, btw.

I think it pinged me because "anymore" is always associated with a negative, IME. I wouldn't say "I used to cry. Now I laugh, anymore." I'd only associate that with the not-doing, as something that once was, but now isn't: "I used to cry. Now I don't cry, anymore.Or, alternately, "I used to cry. Now I laugh instead."

The "anymore" is a construction my East Texas (now San Diego) grandmother uses, btw.

It's what I grew up with, but there are a few regionalism that tend to be very regional. Deb's suggestion will probably be more recognizable to more people. Sometimes, I think I start to channel my Grandmother (who was from North Dakota and grew up calling electricity "the electric"), which can be interesting, but not always completely understandable to the masses.

If you're interested in very arcane lifestyles that don't exist anymore, look up a book called "The Last of the Sod Houses." It's about my grandmother's and some other families that grew up in North Dakota at the turn of the century. It was self-published, so it's not easy to find. I don't even know if I have my copy anymore, with all the moves I've done.

I wouldn't say "I used to cry. Now I laugh, anymore."

That's pretty much how my grandmother would say it, though. Not that the edit to Sail's piece didn't make it more clear to more people, but that the original was not wrong, just regional.