A Life of Service

Often when a person is eulogized we hear the phrase "a life of service." This can mean anything from public servant to hooker. In most cases, the attendees at the funeral knew the person well enough to know the difference.

But in a broader sense, we are all involved in lives of service. Some of them spring from an altruistic desire to help mankind, while others serve misguided priorities, and still others serve merely themselves. Sometimes we choose who or what we serve, sometimes it is chosen for us. Sometimes we are good servants, sometimes we are bad. But we all serve some master.

Some people live for their car or boat or workshop. Some people are slaves to a spotless house. There are people whose world revolves around the stock market and others who hang on every political word uttered that day. Some have let work substitute for a personal life and others barely work because of their personal lives. Food, booze, drugs, cats, dogs, homes, hobbies, weather, books, painting, music, sex, children and parents have all been paramount in people's lives.

These types of service can probably be broken down to three categories:

1) For the good of others.
2) No real impact upon society.
3) Agent of evil.

Oddly enough, depending upon your perspective, a person can fit into two or possibly all of these categories. If we eliminate self-assessment it becomes easier to judge.

Some examples, just off the top of my head would be (in no particular order):

Tom Cruise - No real impact on society.
Donald Trump - Agent of evil
Jesus Christ - For the good of others.

Everyone fits into a category. Sometimes institutions or businesses can be extensions of individuals and can thus be categorized. Such as:

Microsoft - Agent of evil
Disney - Agent of evil
Daily Queen - No impact on society
Coppertone - For the good of others

I guess all we can hope for is success for the "for the good of others" crowd and failure for the "agent of evil" people. I'm pretty sure I'm having no impact upon society as are most people I know. Which is just as well because, right now, it seems like the bad guys are winning.

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Opinions! . . . What Opinions?

I have spent a lot of time inside my head recently. Wandering down endless corridors with an infinite number of doors to an infinite number of rooms. Most of them were locked.

They had signs on them that said things like: Someone Else's Opinion and Under Consideration. One locked door said: Liberals I Would Vote For. That door was locked, the hinges were rusted and I had to use my sleeve to clean the cobwebs from the frosted glass just to read the sign.

There were a few doors that appeared to be unlocked but only moved a few inches before becoming stuck. They had signs that said things like: News Outlets I Respect and Currently Working Actors I Admire. They were right next to another stuck door that said Currently Working Actresses That I Recognize.

Some of the doors, however, were wide open. A couple were just big openings into cave-like walls and had labels such as: Things I Find Funny and People I Don't Like. There were other unlocked doors with well oiled hinges that had signs declaring: Reasons Why Global Warming Is A Crock and Black & White Movies I Love.

Every now and then I would turn a corner and find a row of little, tiny doors. I would get down on my hands and knees, kneeling in the dust, and squint at the teeny, tiny lettering until I made out the inscriptions: Opinion Of Tom Cruise and Reasons To Care What Oprah Thinks.

But the thing that scared me the most was an entire section of halls and corridors blocked by a velvet rope with a placard that read: Reserved For Future Occupant.