The Second

The standard image of teenagers, or young adults, has been essentially the same since I was a teenager in the 80s.  This image is deeply contradictory, but it persists. First the young person himself is characterized like this:      •  Smart, Bold, Insecure, Hormonal, Irresponsible And expectations of him sound like this:      •  Sex obsessed, Driven by big ideas, High potential In some ways the young person is viewed like an unbroken stallion, wild, strong, and could be amazing of only he could be tamed!  Songs and movies capitalize on the conundrums and emotional confusion that relate to this way of viewing and of being viewed.  A couple dated examples:       I'm in the middle without any plans / I'm a boy and I'm a man          – Alice Cooper, Eighteen      He’s old enough to know what’s right, but young enough not to choose it          –...

The last time I heard the word "husbandry" was about 20 years ago when asking my fellow sandwich maker at the university restaurant what he was studying.  He said, "Animal Husbandry."  My wonder at the coupling of "husband" with "animal" has not ceased, primarily by having planted an extremely important verb into my mind: "to husband" That idea alone blossomed into a rich image only slightly grasped in the following etymology given by the free on-line dictionary:     from Old Norse húsbóndi ‘master of a house,’     from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil.’     The original sense of the verb was ‘till, cultivate.’ Granted, the verb “to husband” is never used.  Nevertheless this original concept of cultivating seems to be the key missing idea from today’s noun.  I can only speculate how this verb also happens to associate with marriage, but it would seem to be an ancient idea.  And this seemin...

Power in human relationship, what IS this thing?  We hear phrases like "speak truth to power," and "the rich and powerful," and "an abuse of power."  Such phrases show an attitude of fear, subservience, enmity, moral superiority.  Power, it would seem, is by nature a force with great destructive potential, and inherently bad, morally speaking.  "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."  I can think of no better synopsis of the Ring in Tolkien's famous stories, in which the best choice was NOT to use that power, but rather to destroy it.  As a born-and-bred American, I completely resonate to this view of power:  "Government is best which governs least," that blessed Jeffersonian maxim! But as I have aged and observed a wider variety of power sources, I have seen a strange paradox.  A power vacuum, or a FAILURE to exercise legitimate power, is at least as destructive as an abuse of power.  What does THAT say about those ...