Boorishness, Elegance and Baby-Back Ribs
While dining out at a distinctive establishment in the vicinity of DC last night, the subject of conversation began to run downhill into medical details. As it continued to spiral downward, I finally held up my hand and said "enough, we're dining here". My colleague derided my sensitivity, declaring that I must have "the most sensitive stomach in the world".
It has nothing to do with my stomach or my appetite. It has to do with elegance and class. When I take my wife out to dinner with friends, I do so to enjoy the best of what the world has to offer. Good service, good food (in this case,the best BBQ Baby-Back ribs I've had anywhere), and good atmosphere. Dinner conversation is part of good atmosphere. I want to experience elegance. Elegance is the result of discrimination. Elegance requires that we reject certain things that don't make the cut. Certain threads may be interesting, but interesting by itself is not a great recommendation.
We have the freedom to spout out most anything we want, but just because we can, doesn't mean we should. And this is held in common with our society. There are many things we have the freedom to do. We can make fluid use of obscenities in every conversation, fail to give merging traffic a kind break, and be rude to people working in the service industry. We can anxiously endeavor to have sex with as many people as possible or employ back-stabbing practices to make an ambitious climb to the top of some corporate ladder. But just because we can, does not mean we should. To do so does not make us a better person or the world a better place.
The Ancient Greeks held a view that the soul is a combination of the knowledge and experience you put into it. We live in a society that lets you fill your soul with whatever you want. There's a running stream of stuff to build your soul from. I may be wrong, but I think a "quality of soul" requires investment. If you filter your experiences by discriminating how your time is invested, you will increase your value. Maybe I'm a lone voice "crying in the wilderness". But my wife appreciates me being the Sergeant-at-Arms for quality of conversation.
The world is a composite of all the things we put into it. Hollywood howls about the emissions of your SUV, but will print anything to celluloid to make a buck. No stream of words or images is too considered too foul for Hollywood distribution. (We saw 2 movies recently that buck the trend) Zell Miller made a Senate floor speech earlier this year that touched on this subject.
Send me a note or leave a non-anonymous comment if you want to know which 2 movies and where the "best BBQ baby back ribs" are.
It has nothing to do with my stomach or my appetite. It has to do with elegance and class. When I take my wife out to dinner with friends, I do so to enjoy the best of what the world has to offer. Good service, good food (in this case,the best BBQ Baby-Back ribs I've had anywhere), and good atmosphere. Dinner conversation is part of good atmosphere. I want to experience elegance. Elegance is the result of discrimination. Elegance requires that we reject certain things that don't make the cut. Certain threads may be interesting, but interesting by itself is not a great recommendation.
We have the freedom to spout out most anything we want, but just because we can, doesn't mean we should. And this is held in common with our society. There are many things we have the freedom to do. We can make fluid use of obscenities in every conversation, fail to give merging traffic a kind break, and be rude to people working in the service industry. We can anxiously endeavor to have sex with as many people as possible or employ back-stabbing practices to make an ambitious climb to the top of some corporate ladder. But just because we can, does not mean we should. To do so does not make us a better person or the world a better place.
The Ancient Greeks held a view that the soul is a combination of the knowledge and experience you put into it. We live in a society that lets you fill your soul with whatever you want. There's a running stream of stuff to build your soul from. I may be wrong, but I think a "quality of soul" requires investment. If you filter your experiences by discriminating how your time is invested, you will increase your value. Maybe I'm a lone voice "crying in the wilderness". But my wife appreciates me being the Sergeant-at-Arms for quality of conversation.
The world is a composite of all the things we put into it. Hollywood howls about the emissions of your SUV, but will print anything to celluloid to make a buck. No stream of words or images is too considered too foul for Hollywood distribution. (We saw 2 movies recently that buck the trend) Zell Miller made a Senate floor speech earlier this year that touched on this subject.
Send me a note or leave a non-anonymous comment if you want to know which 2 movies and where the "best BBQ baby back ribs" are.
posted by ironcross11 | 5:36 PM
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