Living life beautifully as we approach Fathers' Day.

For some reason I was drawn to review a book titled the Aspects of the Masculine by C.G. Jung. Let me quote a few passages first:

"Ageing people should know that their lives are not mounting and expanding, but that an inexorable inner process enforces the contraction of life.... How many of us older ones... [are] prepared for the second half of life....?"

"Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning... must pay for it with damage to his soul, just as surely as a growing youth who tries to carry over his childish egoism into adult life must pay for this mistake with social failure."

"We must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts."

In response let me say first that for many years now I have aspired to finding beauty in the events that occur around me - but not for the sake of mirroring them in a painting. It has been the act of living that I wanted to glorify by mere attempts to be original, to seek a beautiful response to all that came to me. I won't profess to have succeeded entirely, or rather consistently - but all along this has been my goal.

Sadly, in some respects, it came to be true, that a kind of social footing was sacrificed for this aim. However I think over all it has been worth it. I am thinking of another quote which I will paraphrase: "[The test of a true intelligence is the ability to retain two opposing ideas in the mind yet continue to function.]" (F.S. Fitzgerald)

Is this not the job of the parent and especially the father?! He must play and yet retain the steady footing of the guardian. And as he approaches the latter half of his life he must also continue to be open to the vagrancies of events, not be so stoic as to succumb to his age, but supply as much creative egoism as ever he has displayed.

This is what is required of the father at all times. Creative solutions must always be at hand - for this is what the child longs for; and is the most worthy of being emulated, the example of how else it can be done - this bringing of beauty into our lives in an original way. I will continue to be a kid in spite of my age for just this reasaon - no matter the scowls or ridicule I might endure.