Waiting for Godot to Leave

This is a repeat.  I linked to this in my latest post.  It's from last year, but it's worth republishing. Some readers were confused about this - as they are about a lot of things I write.  It's just the perfect portrait of more than one person I've known, that's all.  I suspect my readers have known one or two of these themselves. *** We've heard from the  Poet  and the  Sinner . Today I received an email from the Tease. Gosh!  I had no idea you would be reading this.  And look at what I'm wearing! Kevin, we really want you to perform at our parish picnic fish fry fundraiser.  We really really do.  Can you send me a contract? Oh, well, we can't pay you.  So it will have to be a free show.  And you'll have to pay your own way here, and we're at Fr. Corapi's Montana Ranch, so it's not cheap to get here. Did I say cheap?  That's what the boys used to call me!  My!  Has my strap been down like ...

I've turned comments back on for this blog.  It's the internet, you know, so feel free to say something incredibly stupid or hateful.

Another re-post.  This one is from this time last year.  Regular readers will note that there are themes I've been sounding and threads I've been following for a while now. _______________________________________________________________________________ If you read nothing else on this blog, read my piece Boredom and the Barbarian , especially the part where I quote Erich Fromm. Fromm's vision is of two sorts of modern man. The Bored - homo consumens - those who are eternally infantile, always wanting to be passively fed, to suck forever on the Great Teat; they are never satisfied; they are depressed and self-indulgent.  They neither understand nor appreciate culture or beauty, or even other people beyond the use they can put other people to.   The Interested - those who are inter-esse , whose being is within  and among people and things outside of themselves and their own egos. You might say that the first, the Slackers, are simply selfish,...