ilegirl

My husband and I watched a movie this evening, Dan in Real Life.  It was a sweet little love story, saved from being overly vanilla by Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche - I just adore both of them.

I was reacquainted with an old favorite song by Pete Townsend, Let My Love Open the Door.  It’s so lovely, and I feel very happy when I hear it - like I want to get up and dance.  Here are the lyrics.

When people keep repeating

That you’ll never fall in love

When everybody keeps retreating

But you can’t seem to get enough

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

When everything feels all over

When everybody seems unkind

I’ll give you a four-leaf clover

Take all the worry out of your mind

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart I have the only key to your heart

I can stop you falling apart

Try today, you’ll find this way

Come on and give me a chance to say

Let my love open the door

It’s all I’m living for

Release yourself from misery

Only one thing’s gonna set you free

That’s my love

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

When tragedy befalls you

Don’t let them bring you down

Love can cure your problem

You’re so lucky I’m around

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

The Republic is slowly unfolding.

I have apparently read the definition of justice.  I had to backtrack and read the section again; it was rather anticlimactic.  The suspense built up over the dozens of previous pages, so that when during a very short dialogue Socrates reveals his definition of justice I almost missed it. 

Still, there was some poetry to its simplicity.

Justice, he says, is symmetry of talent and vocation, a harmony between one’s strengths and one’s work.  Justice is finding and possessing one’s place as a part of society, contributing and taking responsibility for something meaningful to that society.

Can this be so?  And if yes, why is it that in Western culture we deviate so greatly from the Athenian ideal?

First, to back up a bit, the Athenian ideal found expression in a single word, arete, which finds its closest English partner in the word excellence. 

Second, Socrates and (in his early work) Plato advocated the ideal, but never saw this ideal realized.  They were rational dreamers; they wished and taught, but ultimately the animal nature of human society made its appearance.

Putting this together, understanding and using one’s individual excellence within society serves the individual and the society.  Social awareness is in this context serving in the capacity for which one is best suited by nature, not by birth.   

My blood ran ice cold today.  In a human moment of weakness I shared something Qblog had posted with two of my staff, and one programmer said You should have a blog then the other said She does have a blog.

How did he know?

It seems a former colleague has spilt the beans.

Somehow I feel … well, a bit outed.

Not to worry - I won’t let the prospect that my boss might even know (and what a wonderful boss he is, truly a fabulous person of great integrity, and a daily inspiration) influence the tone of my posts.  No, no - not one bit!