The Second

Age gracefully.   Who values this phrase?   I have no inkling for others’ opinions, but for the span of my 40+ years youth has been more widely valued.   Ignore the perennial pursuit of women both to accentuate and prolong their youthful enticements (fashion, make up, diets, etc).   These things do not reflect how one ages but the years of fertility and heightened femininity, a relatively narrow window in time beyond which the odds decrease for securing a husband and bearing children. Age gracefully.   The hyper intellectual asks in response, “what’s its opposite? What is it to age disgracefully?”   When you follow the themes of pop musicians with the staying power to last many decades, you can see distilled patterns of average people.   For example Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss, that vaudevillian rock band from the seventies.   They were as much a raucous storyline as rock 'n’ roll musicians (and they did produce some quality stuff)....

The title of this blog was chosen for several reasons, the most immediate being due to my taking up blogging as a discipline for the second time.   But as soon as the name suggested itself several overtones folded in quickly on top of the first.   Here are many variants: 1.        A second time through, as in repeating something but with a fresh approach 2.        A second chance, as in forgiveness and repentance following sin, or even outright failure. 3.        A second, as in the 60 th part of a minute 4.        Second born traits – I’m a second born, and that has surprising explanatory power 5.        To second, meaning to speak up in support for a motion 6.        Seconds, as in going back for more after the first helping of yummy food has been devoured Each carries a the...