O ften when parents send their children off into the fracas of life, they dispatch them with the warning: “Be careful and use your head.” But isn’t that advice all rhetoric and trite? What else would we use to engage life? Our toes? Our elbows? It is only as we grow older that we realize what we once deemed as a parental platitude is wisdom that no sophist can equal. For even though the head sits as the crown of the body, for most people it is every other body part that actually rules. Our palates salivate, so we grab for the extra cookie; our eyes desire, so we spend beyond our means; our desires flare, so we reach for the forbidden; our legs grow weary, so we abandon the treadmill; our tongues grow restless, and so we unfurl gossip. Day in and day out we respond to the dictates of the body, but the head, the supposed capitol of our resolve, our will, our better judgment, well, it seems to be a silent partner. But as the New Year approaches that farewell warning our mothers and fathers gave us while standing by the front gate should echo with solemnity: USE YOUR HEAD! click to read more
