So this new year brought with it some new goals for me, one of which is to blog once a week. A little challenging? Maybe. Doable? Definitely. Instead of trying to think of what to write on each week, I'm going to simplify and do a literature related post on week 1, an education post on week 2, a spiritual post on week 3, and then a childhood memory just for kicks on week 4. Feel free to follow the blog but in all reality, it's just fun for me to gather some thoughts and get them down, so I am not ardently pursuing your page views, but if something tickles your fancy feel free to follow.

This week's post comes from Henry IV, one of Shakespeare's histories I am studying for school right now. It comes from the young heir-to-be Prince Harry (not the current one, although contrasting the two makes for some striking similarities). Harry is a little um.. immature for future King. He hangs out with friends that are a pretty rough, dishonest, lazy, alcohol-consuming crowd. We're not sure if Harry is doing this just because he can before he is King or if that's really the way he wants to live the rest of his life. He hints to the audience that his playing around is all just an act. Because of this, Harrys says, when he turns into the good boy that everyone wants him to be they will love him so much more because people have never seen him this way. Here are his actual words describing his view on why he should change:

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents
1.3.201-205

So, Harry's rare accident in this case is becoming the heir to the throne that everyone wants him to be. But for me, and maybe for you, I wonder what things we enjoy every once in a while, but couldn't stand doing on a regular basis. It would be neat just to see a group of people who holidayed all the time to see if it was just as hard holiday as working. I'd be happy to volunteer for any study like that (sigh). Maybe you or I don't buy that view, and find enough satisfaction in ordinary, everyday life. But then again, look at the news, teeming with stories of the unbelievable, fantastic, and outrageous. Even the little ads beside news stories are humorous to read: "I lost 20 lbs with this one weird trick that doctors hate". It sounds really ludicrous, but people have to be clicking on these because they are profitable enough the keep coming up on the net. But just the types of stories that we hear every day allude to the fact that there is something mesmerizing about things that just don't happen all to often.