Malibu morning picture of the day - Friday, November 7, 2014

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

It is Friday. Yet another clear blue sky.

Well, I did not achieve 5 of a kind. Today's picture has a streak of cloud. Dial back through the week. You'd be hard pressed to tell one day from another. Just another day in "paradise" as some people would say.

A freshman dorm building at my employer.

A colleague of mine here at this school at which I work (which many call "paradise") told me an interesting story. She herself had been an undergrad here and was assigned a roommate who had the title of "Princess" back in her home country. The Princess had been waited upon by servants all of her life, so she had no clue how anything was done in life.

The Mediterranean "beige box" motif is the
overarching look out here.

My colleague said that the Princess left trash and soiled laundry on the floor and never put anything away, and while she had a sweet personality, she became one of the most ill-groomed  people she had ever dealt with--that it was like sharing a room with a pig (or maybe an untrained chihuahua). The Princess' parents' way of dealing with it in the first semester was to just keep mailing her clean clothes. My colleague wound up picking up after her just so that she herself would not have to live in a pig pen. My employer has a strict policy that all freshmen must live in student housing on campus, no exceptions.

These apartments on campus are for upperclassmen. Bland yes,
but you're supposed to be looking at the ocean ...

Come the second year, the parents bought a nearby condo and staffed it with a cook, a driver, and a maid. My colleague said that condo rapidly became Party Central where everything you might imagine a undisciplined, privileged young person in a foreign country with no supervision and virtually unlimited resources might do, did do. But at least the Princess had clean shelter and clothing, as well as access to regular meals, what she did with her educational opportunities was entirely up to her. Having been a father to undergrad daughters, what this "King" did to address his daughter's concerns was exactly what I did. I suspect the Princess definitely learned a few things about herself that freshman year though.

If I were 19, given a million dollars, and sent to Paris, London, or Tokyo, what would I have done? Stupid things, I'm sure.

I was not born into such resources and it is very easy for me to apply middle-class value judgments upon this story. Our media certainly give us license to judge the poor (slobs) and the rich (snobs). But is it any more just to judge the rich negatively than those poorer than myself? It's a very interesting question, the answer to which I keep looking for and have not found. I suspect that the images of "paradise" that we harbor, all presuppose maintenance, upkeep, discipline, and articulations of standards and order. Heaven's foursquare city with golden streets must have a department of public works, don't you think?

May you take time to relax this weekend from all the work you do to create your own paradise.

Love,
Pops