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9. ADONIS-LIKE SONS? (Sept. 2002)
Just a a little sidebar
in a NY Times article caught my attention.
It was about a man who pulled up to a spot and hired 3 Mexicans to
take back to his fancy house in Port Jefferson on Long Island's north shore. The
man had just spent $25,000 to clear some trees. Now he wanted the Mexicans to
lay down some sod. Observing the work , and not lifting a finger of course to
help, were the man's 2 sons, who the Times reporter described as having
"Adonis-like bodies".
"They like to go to the gym," their mother said.
Here's what I ask.
Adonis-like for what?
When I was a kid it's likely the 2 Adonis boys would have pitched in.
Alongside their father, some friends, some neighbors.
Adonis-like for what, I ask?
To win a WW II? To cross the continent? To be great hunters? To farm?
All across America the wealthy, spoiled brats of American prosperity
are pumping iron, pushing themselves under the sergeant-like barking of personal
trainers, maybe taking steroids, to hone their useless delts and abs and pecs.
Young men who will never do work more strenuous than flicking a computer on are
training harder than Olympic athletes trained 50 years ago.
For what?
So their biceps can ripple as they hand their 50-dollar bills to their
Mexican servants?
We are becoming very rich. And gorgeous, useless abstractions.
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