Pandora's Other Box

Some years ago (close to two hundred, some say) Mr. Thoreau built himself a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and proceeded to stay there for a couple of years… From that stay came his most recognized body of work, “ On Walden Pond ”, a reflection on life, liberty and the pursuit of the human being… ( or … was it the other way around?) I can’t quite put myself away for two years although, I have to admit, this has been strongly suggested on more than a couple of occasions. So, the very next best thing was to create my own little pond space somewhere in that virtual world that modern technology has put at our disposal, where we can get so easily lost and there, let my mind wander around and come up with some thoughts and ideas of its own. I remember the times when, if we did this we could easily be classified as being “not quite altogether there”… Ahhh!!! Blessed be the cyber world and the acceptance it brings to our heretofore mundane and simple fantasies…...

…I must be a member of a vanishing species… Many years ago, during the dawn of what would turn out to be a somewhat convoluted existence, a young man was constantly exhorted by his elders to exercise the ability to think. “Think for yourself!” This young man would be admonished to do… “Don’t let others decide for you what you should decide for yourself…” they would pummel his ears with these and other similar advice, so strongly imbuing this concept that it bordered on being a requirement to live as a member of this family unit. So it was that this thinking took this young man to question most everything that would come his way; a habit which often brought chagrin ( in one or more of its expressions like… mortification, embarrassment and especially, annoyance… ) to those who had so strongly advocated the very behavior. In early school, an old fashioned catholic school so commonly present in Latin countries, this questioning constantly brought this young man face to face with ...