2 Flights of Stairs

Climbing stairs is not what I would call my preferred activity.  Increasingly as part of my curmudgeonly evolution I have wilfully identified those undertakings from which I instinctively resile. The scope of abandonment primarily encompasses social conventions but I as willingly condemn other enterprises which for one reason or another I dislike or of which from some more complicated motive I disapprove.  This evening as we dined at Heirloom Café on the Mississippi River I was obliged to descend a winding flight of stairs in order to "check the children"; the main floor loo was occupied. I discovered upon returning to table that my Apple watch had recorded my climb on the two flights of stairs.  This bit of intelligence captures the competing philosophic message surrounding the performances of necessity and preference; that is, some things while undesirable are nonetheless imperative.

Balancing this persuasive theme is my predominant bent insofar as possible to avoid what I abhor where the inclination is not otherwise commissioned. Among those social enterprises for which I have no pre-existing displeasure is the company of people with whom I am comfortable and with whom I do not mind being cloistered for upwards of three hours.  Admittedly this is a narrow refinement - violating as it does any number of traditional foregathering, the deprivation of which I am fully capable of enduring.  After almost half a century of private law practice the willingness to ignore what are possibly advantageous commitments is nothing short of revolutionary.  The conditioned submission to commercial give-and-take is a habit which is reluctant to recoil. It requires a frank acknowledgment of one's personal ambitions and a clarity of one's undertow of interests.

Achievement of this goal most certainly satisfies my own objectives.  I won't however presume to extend the identical procurement to those with whom I cavort. The disparity which exists between each of us, no matter how seemingly compatible, is such that the success of our personal goals is by definition singular. I would naturally hope that there is some reciprocity but the legitimacy of my propositions demands that I stand on my claim without knowing its strength in the minds of others.