As one who for the first time in his life is not able to say "Happy Father's Day" to his father, I am obviously at the age where one must turn his attention to the idea of "What qualities and wisdom can I leave to my children that will make them as pleased with me as a father as I have been with my father?" As I approach my senescence I reflect on what qualities I hope to imbue in my children.
I would like for them to know how to be abstemious without abjuring joie de vivre (next week's post) or needing to be a bon vivant. It would be nice, too, if they were insouciant and have perspicacity and equanimity,
I hope they would enjoy (as much as do I) badinage and a good bon mot, and become a deipnosophist. While they have a burgeoning reputation among their friends as being sagacious they are also winsome and ebullient even if not(yet) considered to be a philologue.
I would hope they will learn to avoid being captious, mendacious, obstreperous and (they knew it was coming) contumacious.
Finally, I will be pleased if in the efflorescence of their inchoate denidified adulthood they learn to be polymaths without being pedantic, can solicit without being solicitous, are voracious for knowledge without being a quidnunc, and sapient without being sappy.They don't need to be fecund as long as they are not feckless. And I hope they always supererogate and have ruth.
To the extent that I exhibit any of these qualities I am indebted to my father. And to every father out there I wish you a happy father's day.
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