The Song of Songs
So I was walking down El Camino Real yesterday, which is the main stretch the runs through Silicon Valley, and I was watching people in their cars as they drove by. I find it fascinating how many Teslas there are on the road out here; I've never seen so many in any other part of the country.
At some point, I glanced out at the road and caught at rather attractive woman alone in her car picking her nose. Or her finger was in the vincinity of one of her nostrils when I happened to look at her. Almost immediately, she sensed my gaze, looked over, saw me, and, realizing how what she was doing must have appeared to me, she got very flustered. Her hand fell down to her lap and she looked forward, clearly embarrassed.
This all happened in the span of maybe 3 seconds, after which her car was past me on the street and I continued walking along. It made me feel a little good about myself that she had this reaction to me. I'm no Brad Pitt, but someday, I'll be old and fat and bald and ugly and whatever else nature tosses into my middle age party favor bag. After that, I don't think I'm going to make any women self-conscious about themselves. If I spy a woman in her car doing something mildly embarrassing, she'll look at me and think, "Ah, screw it, he's old, what do I care?" And then keep right on doing whatever she was doing, without missing a beat.
Now that I'm typing this story out and reading it over, it just reads like maybe I'm lacking some self-confidence. Which I am, but I should clarify: I'm not saying this small incident gave me a reason to live, I'm just saying that it felt like a tiny reminder that the clock is ticking for me. The further down that parts of my body start to sag, over time, the less shame I'll be able to trigger in other people. You got to get in there and make people feel self-conscious about themselves while you're young.
Okay, I'm not sure this is a useful takeaway. I forgot where I was in the rambling...
Ah, so there's a book in the Jewish Bible called "Solomon's Song" or "The Song of Songs". It was written by King Solomon, who was David's son, the compiler of the Book of Proverbs, and is widely considered to be the wisest man who ever lived. A Jewish person would say that this book is about a person discovering God for the first time. It's about an individual awakening to the beautiful nature of the divine that exists beyond this life. (To my Jewish readers: I'm probably butchering this, there are different interpretations between Jewish sects, these interpretations have changed over time, etc etc. Forgive me.)
Now the Christians, being as imperial as they are, appropriated the whole Jewish Bible and called it the "Old Testament" in their own Bible. The "Song of Songs" is in there; feel free to grab a Bible or steal one from a hotel room if you'd like to check this out for yourself. Here's the odd thing: according to the Christian translation and interpretation of this same Hebrew, the book is about a man and woman discovering each other for the first time. When I say discovering each other, I mean sexually.
Yeah.
Here's a sample (this is the man speaking to the woman):
"Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate."
-Song of Songs, 4:3 (NIV)
Most Christians I ask about this have never heard of it. There's this "Bible's Guide to Sex Talk" right in the middle of the holiest of holy books, and it's somehow escaped the attention of the entire cult of people who are trying to force abstinence-only sex education programs to be taught in our schools. Granted, all of the sexual innuendo is buried under layers of metaphor, but there's the distinct absence of anything about the man and woman waiting to be married before getting freaky. I have to wonder what's in the original Hebrew text. How exactly can there be this much difference in the interpretations?
At some point, I glanced out at the road and caught at rather attractive woman alone in her car picking her nose. Or her finger was in the vincinity of one of her nostrils when I happened to look at her. Almost immediately, she sensed my gaze, looked over, saw me, and, realizing how what she was doing must have appeared to me, she got very flustered. Her hand fell down to her lap and she looked forward, clearly embarrassed.
This all happened in the span of maybe 3 seconds, after which her car was past me on the street and I continued walking along. It made me feel a little good about myself that she had this reaction to me. I'm no Brad Pitt, but someday, I'll be old and fat and bald and ugly and whatever else nature tosses into my middle age party favor bag. After that, I don't think I'm going to make any women self-conscious about themselves. If I spy a woman in her car doing something mildly embarrassing, she'll look at me and think, "Ah, screw it, he's old, what do I care?" And then keep right on doing whatever she was doing, without missing a beat.
Now that I'm typing this story out and reading it over, it just reads like maybe I'm lacking some self-confidence. Which I am, but I should clarify: I'm not saying this small incident gave me a reason to live, I'm just saying that it felt like a tiny reminder that the clock is ticking for me. The further down that parts of my body start to sag, over time, the less shame I'll be able to trigger in other people. You got to get in there and make people feel self-conscious about themselves while you're young.
Okay, I'm not sure this is a useful takeaway. I forgot where I was in the rambling...
Ah, so there's a book in the Jewish Bible called "Solomon's Song" or "The Song of Songs". It was written by King Solomon, who was David's son, the compiler of the Book of Proverbs, and is widely considered to be the wisest man who ever lived. A Jewish person would say that this book is about a person discovering God for the first time. It's about an individual awakening to the beautiful nature of the divine that exists beyond this life. (To my Jewish readers: I'm probably butchering this, there are different interpretations between Jewish sects, these interpretations have changed over time, etc etc. Forgive me.)
Now the Christians, being as imperial as they are, appropriated the whole Jewish Bible and called it the "Old Testament" in their own Bible. The "Song of Songs" is in there; feel free to grab a Bible or steal one from a hotel room if you'd like to check this out for yourself. Here's the odd thing: according to the Christian translation and interpretation of this same Hebrew, the book is about a man and woman discovering each other for the first time. When I say discovering each other, I mean sexually.
Yeah.
Here's a sample (this is the man speaking to the woman):
"Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate."
-Song of Songs, 4:3 (NIV)
Most Christians I ask about this have never heard of it. There's this "Bible's Guide to Sex Talk" right in the middle of the holiest of holy books, and it's somehow escaped the attention of the entire cult of people who are trying to force abstinence-only sex education programs to be taught in our schools. Granted, all of the sexual innuendo is buried under layers of metaphor, but there's the distinct absence of anything about the man and woman waiting to be married before getting freaky. I have to wonder what's in the original Hebrew text. How exactly can there be this much difference in the interpretations?