They say a picture's worth a thousand words, and if anything, it is a vast understatement. Only the simplest picture can be conveyed, with even rough accuracy, in a thousand words. (I commented on one here. In this case they set to convey a message merely by dressing their model, and they succeeded with resounding success. The message was conveyed clearly and unambiguously to a wide audience, even when contradicted by the accompanying written message.)
If so for a picture, how much more so for a life? Many things can be learned only by living. Since he linked to my previous post, I took a tour of Wes Meltzer's blog: The Idea Salon. It is an interesting blog, and Wes is clearly a very bright guy. It is also filled with youthful hubris: of leaping into the fray not fully prepared. Not a bad thing, in my opinion. (He reminds me a little of myself at that age.) Hopefully, with time, it will mellow into mature wisdom. But for now, it speaks of initiative, of a chomping at the bit of life. There is an expression for it in Hebrew: `azut d'q'dusha (עזות דקדושא) - holy hubris. (Actually, it is an Aramaic phrase borrowed into Hebrew - literally: "hubris of holiness".) `Azut, perhaps even more than its English translation, has negative connotations: but this oxymoron refers to the necessity of action, of not being too humble to take the initiative, and do the right thing. No one is omniscient, there is always the possibility that our good intentions are all wrong. Nevertheless, we must boldly do what is right, as we understand it. As it is said:
בִּמְקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ
Bimqom she'eyn anashim hishtadel lihyot ish
In a place where there are no men strive to be a man
Pirqey Avot 2:5
There are many, many, often conflicting, explanations as to why God chose to give the Tora to the Jews (not all of them reflecting favorably on the Jewish people) but here is one that is not well known:
מפני מה נתנה תורה לישראל מפני שהן עזין
Mipney ma nitna tora l'yisra'el mipney shehen `azin
Because of what was the Tora given to Israel? Because they have hubris.
Talmud Bavli, Beysa 25B
I too consider myself youthful, though I am quite a bit older than Wes. I can only hope that my hubris is appropriate for my age.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at March 13, 2005 11:52 PMI watched the video about dating. I was surprised, but I'm skeptical. A friend of mine did something similar, but without pictures. She put 2 dating adds in a online dating service. One was a "hot 20 year old blond girl, interested in fashion, loves sex", made spelling errors, etc. Men just went crazy. She received hundreds of replies. The other one was a 26 year old highly educated brunette with a good job. She got 6 replies. I think it all depends. Maybe the woman in the video used a conservative dating site or something. Maybe the men thought the sexpot was a fake (it certainly looked fake/modelled), and were intimidated.
While I'm glad there are guys like David sticking up for us "good girls", I still think most men are really superficial. Sorry :/
I bet the body-language communication was more nuanced than "good girl" vs. "sexpot".
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at March 14, 2005 03:05 PM PermalinkDavid, I am confident that you, alone among us all, will never completely grow-up. ;)
If your hubris is appropriate, how can it be hubris? Then it must be khouros, right?
Posted by: jinnderella at March 14, 2005 10:35 PM PermalinkWell, thank you kindly for the praise, David, as offhand as it sounds. I won't make any pretense to know everything, because I know I don't. But, as you suggest, my goal is mostly to, well, be there, to have a voice. So it's well worth the energy -- and it does take quite a lot.
I'm quite flattered, really, that you bothered to read through it. It's... somewhat mundane, most of the time. But I certainly appreciate it, and the kind words.
Posted by: Wes Meltzer at March 15, 2005 06:09 PM Permalink