Perspectives and Perversions

Dave Morris begins his "Opening Doors" article about Rick Bébout's web site (Eye May 12/05) by quoting Bébout on gay people and what they offer:

"We should be gift-givers," says Rick Bébout. "We should be people who understand we have huge, invaluable perceptions to offer the rest of the world."

If that sounds grandiose, set it alongside the ranting that would deem us worthless or worse. For me, Bébout's gay gift-giver is epitomized by the idler or the flaneur. I am reminded, in particular, of the set of qualities listed in the characterization offered by Robert Louis Stevenson in his "Apology for Idlers":

[T]he idler has another and more important quality than these. I mean his wisdom. He who has much looked on the childish satisfaction of other people in their hobbies, will regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people and opinions.

Of course, a flair for tolerance from time to time manifests in flights of indignation. The observer is at times an arbitrator. This is a gift. A set of tinted-glasses for watching the show go by...

And so for day 755
06.01.2009