Saturday, July 10, 2004

Pook #10 - Lesson Seven: Respect is All

This young man thought he had become successful with his desire. Boyfriend and girlfriend were they; the hard awkward early moments finally gone. All was good! Except…

“I am hungry,” (are they not always hungry!?). “Fetch me lunch.”

Poor young man! He had enough wisdom not to do this earlier, but now, he told himself, “She is my girlfriend. I must make her happy!”

He brought her lunch. After feeding her face, was she satisfied? NO! For she said, “I need to do this and this at work today. It would be wonderful if you would go get the supplies for me.”

And off the Nice Guy went! And when he returned, there was another task. Poor Nice Guy! On and on it went! More tasks, more chores, he became wrapped around her finger.

Then, it happened: “I think we should just be friends,” she said.

The Nice Guy was devastated. But also, he was puzzled. He did everything he could to please her, and this was the result?

“Ahh,” he realized. “By pleasing her whims, I lost track of mine. A servant you’ll be, a friend she’ll see. As…

“Respect is All.”

“But Pook, why!? Why would respect be so vital?”

“I’m not equipped to answer such a question. Let us ask a Great Philosopher.”

And then, out of nowhere, appeared Socrates!

“Attention Socrates! You have been summoned! Did you know that? Answer the question that is respect.”

And Socrates replied, “That’s an easy one, Pook. Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.” Socrates then vanished in a whirl of bluish smoke.

“Oh wise sage! Salient soul! Respect is the realization of set boundaries. After all, how can reverence become without any sense of fear (of you walking away!)? For true passion with women can only come when the man can easily walk away; the Great Catch walking away is woman’s Great Fear.”

“Walk away?”

“Yes. Now let us ask a question to that opposite sex. Arise woman!”

The woman enters with flare and fire.

“Answer this riddle, why do men who are willing to walk away turn you on?”

And the woman laughs. “Didn’t everyone know this? A man that can walk away means that he has his pick of the litter and the woman can easily be replaced. You won’t find the lawyer or doctor or politician be entangled to a woman at first.”

“Away you go!” The woman melted in a blaze of fire and flame.

“So the Great Catch is always willing to walk away?”

“The Great Catch is respect. She is supposed to celebrate life with you, not use you as a peon. Be a man and respect attends to itself.”

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