Dream writing

kw: dreams, writing

I woke up from a vivid dream a short time ago. I had entered a quirky writing contest; I had a moment to look at a flash card with a subject, then half an hour to write an essay on two sheets (supplied) of paper. I awoke at that point, struggled a bit to remember the subject, then an essay began to spin itself out in my head. Here is the result:

Subject: "All men are created equal. Defend or refute."

Thomas Jefferson knew what he was about when he wrote, "…all men are created equal." He had no way of knowing whether it is true of "all persons…". What is true: we all begin as a fertilized ovum containing 46 chromosomes (except for a few genetic accidents). A male ovum contains a single Y chromosome. At this point creation is complete, and development, chance, experience, and education take over. These items certainly are not equal.

Consider my parents, two musical people with little else in common, though they got along quite well. Dad, a mechanical sort with great people skills, had a year of college and an Army background in the Corps of Engineers. Mom, an emotional, even passionate woman with a flair for extravagance, loved history and geology, finished junior college and worked in an engineering office until the two of them married in 1946. They had four boys…four quite different boys.

I, the eldest, got the history and geology, and a good dose of the musical talent. I got little of the mechanical aptitude. I became a computer programmer, something nothing in their background (except musical aptitude perhaps) could have predicted. I came close to earning a PhD, but didn't finish.

Boy #2 is a historian, calligrapher, and now archaeologist. A good singer, but otherwise not much of a musician. He, as I, is a perfect speller. He did complete a PhD.

Boy #3 got all the mechanical aptitude, but being dyslexic, is not much of a scholar, though he finished college. He designs environmental remediation equipment.

Boy #4 disdained college in favor of Dianetics training. He usually makes his living as a handyman and remodeler, though he has the best people skills of us all. He plays guitar and, like all of us, can sing well.

Four boys, four very different people, yet with a common thread. Created equal perhaps, but creation isn't everything.

There you have it. I don't think I'd have won the contest.