There Are Few Things In The World

Many Of The Rites Of Passage, Those Rituals Of Growing Up Found In Our Society, Are In The Form Of Such Comic, Practical Joking Affairs--which We Ignore In The Belief That They Possess No Deeper Significance. Yet It Is Precisely In Their Being Regarded As Unimportant That They Take On Importance. For In Them We Ritualize And Dramatize Attitudes Which Contradict And Often Embarrass The Sacred Values Which We Proclaim Through Our Solemn Ceremonies And Rituals Of Nationhood.

Man's Hope Can Paint A Purple Picture, Can Transform A Soaring Vulture Into A Noble Eagle Or Moaning Dove.

...and Yet I Am What They Think I Am.

That Which We Remember Is, More Often Than Not, That Which We Would Like To Have Been; Or That Which We Hope To Be. Thus Our Memory And Our Identity Are Ever At Odds; Our History Ever A Tale Told By Inattentive Idealists.

What And How Much Had I Lost By Trying To Do Only What Was Expected Of Me Instead Of What I Myself Had Wished To Do?