Clearly such men have become slaves of luxurious living and are completely enervated, men who can endure being seen as womanish creatures, hermaphrodites, something which real men would avoid at all costs.
How could hair be a burden to men? Unless, of course, one should say that feathers are a burden to birds also.
A man is clearly not a bird, though there are men who could certainly learn some lessons from the birds. No fancy examples are required, simply the ones to be found close to home.
Nature has given every kind of bird its own qualities, and none of them feel the need to supplement their plumages with different colors than were given to them, or to behave any more like the others, or even to appear any more like the others.
The sparrow does not envy the duck, and the duck does not dream of becoming the cardinal.
The cardinal does not wish to paddle his way across a pond, and the duck does not hold a grudge that he lacks the agile flight of the sparrow.
Ducks have their quacks, and sparrows make their tweets and chirps, and cardinals sing melodically, and they don’t show any signs of fighting over how they express themselves. If I sit and listen carefully, I find that they all go together quite nicely.
Even within their species, the male and the female do not make efforts to imitate one another, satisfied with the fact that they look different because they are different.
As a young boy, I once observed to my Uncle Alois that Mrs. Cardinal must get annoyed at Mr. Cardinal for being such a show-off. “She doesn’t seem to mind,” he replied. “Maybe she’s smart enough to know that it isn’t worth the effort.”
The birds don’t acquire useless accessories and vain luxuries, or only eat worms bought at the expensive stores, or build nests exclusively in the most fashionable trees. They don’t chop off their feathers, or dye them, or curl them, or glue fake feathers onto the ones they already have.
Humans have reason and free will, of course, and we might think that this is what must be getting in the way, making us somehow unhappy with who and what we are.
No, it isn’t our power of judgment itself that’s tripping us up, since it too was given to us by Nature, so that we might live even more abundantly, with the depth of awareness and choice. It’s our neglect of those gifts that brings us down, because we don’t look deep inside enough to learn that being ourselves is more than sufficient.
How could hair be a burden to men? Unless, of course, one should say that feathers are a burden to birds also.
A man is clearly not a bird, though there are men who could certainly learn some lessons from the birds. No fancy examples are required, simply the ones to be found close to home.
Nature has given every kind of bird its own qualities, and none of them feel the need to supplement their plumages with different colors than were given to them, or to behave any more like the others, or even to appear any more like the others.
The sparrow does not envy the duck, and the duck does not dream of becoming the cardinal.
The cardinal does not wish to paddle his way across a pond, and the duck does not hold a grudge that he lacks the agile flight of the sparrow.
Ducks have their quacks, and sparrows make their tweets and chirps, and cardinals sing melodically, and they don’t show any signs of fighting over how they express themselves. If I sit and listen carefully, I find that they all go together quite nicely.
Even within their species, the male and the female do not make efforts to imitate one another, satisfied with the fact that they look different because they are different.
As a young boy, I once observed to my Uncle Alois that Mrs. Cardinal must get annoyed at Mr. Cardinal for being such a show-off. “She doesn’t seem to mind,” he replied. “Maybe she’s smart enough to know that it isn’t worth the effort.”
The birds don’t acquire useless accessories and vain luxuries, or only eat worms bought at the expensive stores, or build nests exclusively in the most fashionable trees. They don’t chop off their feathers, or dye them, or curl them, or glue fake feathers onto the ones they already have.
Humans have reason and free will, of course, and we might think that this is what must be getting in the way, making us somehow unhappy with who and what we are.
No, it isn’t our power of judgment itself that’s tripping us up, since it too was given to us by Nature, so that we might live even more abundantly, with the depth of awareness and choice. It’s our neglect of those gifts that brings us down, because we don’t look deep inside enough to learn that being ourselves is more than sufficient.
Written in 7/2000
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