Your Daily Dose of Genius

From C.S. Lewis' Lilies That Fester:

'Hypocrisy is not the only evil they encourage. There are, in 'piety' and 'culture', states which, if less culpable, are no less disastrous. In the one we have the "Goody-goody"; the docile youth who has neither revolted against nor risen above the routine pietisms and respectabilities of his home. His conformity has won the approval of his parents, his influential neighbors, and his own conscience. He does not know that he has missed anything and is content. In the other, we have the adaptable youth to whom poetry has always been something "set" for "evaluation." Success in this exercise has given him pleasure and let him into the ruling class. He does not know what he has missed, does not know that poetry ever had any other purpose, and is content.

Both types are much to be pitied; but both can sometimes be very nasty. Both may exibit spiritual pride, but each in its proper form, since the one has succeeded by acquiescence and repression, but the other by repeated victory in competitive performances. To the pride of the one, sly, simpering, and demure, we might apply the word "smug." My epithet for the other would, I think, be "swaggering." It tends in my experience to be raw, truculent, eager to give pain, insatiable in its demands for submission, resentful and suspicious of disagreement... And perhaps both types are less curable than the hypocrite proper. A hypocrite might (conceivably) repent and mend; or he might be unmasked and rendered innocuous. But who could bring to repentance, and who can unmask, those who were attempting no deception? who don't know that they are not the real thing because they don't know that there ever was a real thing?

...Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.'

Sunday.

I have conflicting feelings about the weather, today. My skin is so relieved to feel warmth and sunshine when I go outside. I feel more alive than I have in months, as though something inside is rolling over and coming out of hibernation (I'm telling you- I am a summertime girl, at heart!). But it's February 8th, and it's just a tease. And in a couple of days, it is going to be bitterly cold again. And I am going to be so sad.
I identify entirely with animals that sleep the whole winter. I could do it if I was allowed to.

But today is rousing visions and memories of summers in the South. My mouth is watering for a burger, and I would do just about anything to be sitting on the river on a boat with a coke in my hand, surrounded by the people that I love, with my skin feeling singed and browned and my hair crunchy, feeling the undulating of the boat over the waves and the hum of the motor. Just about anything.

Summer in the South is about friendship, family, and being outside. It is sitting on a dock, porch, boat, or lawn all day long, feeling the day stretch on and on, surrounded by your nearest and dearest and not wishing to be any other place in the whole world. It is sitting quietly with a beer, coke, or iced tea in your hand, watching the sun set on the water or behind the trees, hearing cicadas and crickets coming out, feeling exhausted and also tingly with being alive. If there are kids around, they will be catching fireflies and playing ball or tag, and their laughter will mingle with the evening sounds and drift around the neighborhood or across the water to neighboring docks and boats. Dinner is grilled chicken, steak, or burgers. Sometimes there's a fire after dark, and the conversation and company will continue under the stars.
Company, here, isn't about impressing anybody or being anybody. There is no pressure to perform, no cattiness, no drama and no pretense. It is just about loving the ones you're with, shooting the breeze, laughing it up, being genuine, having a blast.
It's amazing how easy it is to sit and talk all day long, how possible it is to feel completely satisfied with the company and the activities for the day, to feel that of all the places you could be and of all the things you could be doing, this is the best of both.


I miss the summer, and I love the South.