The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, annotated….

Although best know for his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein created one of the great science fiction characters, a man named Lazarus Long. He was a person gifted with an extraordinarily long lifetime running onto the hundreds of years. As a result of this, he amassed a wealth of knowledge. In the novel Time Enough for Love, there are several interludes in which excerpts from his notebook are found. I have always thought that these present some of the great wisdom of the world and what follows is my homage to them with my own observations and comments. (By the way, I strongly recommend the novel if for no other reason than to read his journal excerpts but in case you just want to read the excerpts, try this URL: http://www.bobgod.com/lazaruslong.html)

“A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.”
Now, I recognize that I can get into some deep kimchi by taking this quote and making observations about certain religions (including the one into which I was born) and how their followers view women but I don’t intend going there as I have no wish to end up on the same hit list as Salman Rushdie. What I will say about this is based on my own experience. I have never viewed my wife as anything but my equal in a partnership. To do otherwise dishonors her. If we start from the assumption that I love her (which I do), why would I want to do something that demonstrates a lack of respect and consideration? The truth is that due to circumstances, she has long been the primary bread-winner in our family, despite the fact that I’m the over-educated chimp. She is retired and her pension is larger than my salary. But it’s far more than the money. It was true when she was a stay-at-home mom early in our marriage. For one thing, people don’t “own” people. (Okay, I know. Slavery still exists in some places.) But more important, she is my life partner and is the person who completes my world.

“Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.”
(Warning: Shameless plug coming up.) This is actually part of my previous blog regarding what I have learned about women. If you want my comments on this, read that one.

“[An ingredient for a happy marriage:] – See to it that she has her own desk – then keep your hands off it!”
In our case, she has her own desk. I do not touch it. She has it organized in her own way and if I need something out of it, I ask. As a corollary, something that Heinlein could not have anticipated was the influence of home computers. Make sure she has her own computer for her desk. Aside from the fact that you don’t want to have to stop that Flight Simulator flight over the Atlantic so that she can use the computer to do the bills, she should have her own space and place with the programs and games she wants. And although I am hardly an IT professional, I am the computer tech-savvy family member. So when she needs help with her computer or printer, she asks. Since I’m hopeless with real tools, it’s a way of contributing to the maintenance of the household in a way I understand.

“A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she is beautiful – he just hadn’t noticed it at first.”
As it happens, I did notice that she was beautiful. But she has always been the person who was there to reassure me when I was down and to give me a swift kick in the bum when it was needed. The biggest swift kick she gave me was when she summarily informed me that I needed to see a psychiatrist about my depression or she was leaving. By that time, there was nothing she could do to build up my morale because that had sunk into the negative numbers. So, she did what was needed at the time. And it probably saved my life.

“Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.”
If you’re concerned about TMI, skip this paragraph and move onto the next one. My wife has subscribed to this excerpt as long as I have known her and has quoted it many times. I have seen her dressed to the nines and she is every bit a lady in the classic sense of the term. But when the clothes come off and we are in bed (or elsewhere), there is no sense of modesty. Understand, she does not have what society considers a “perfect” body and she has had a number of major procedures that have left scars. Know what? She has never once shown modesty around me, before or since. And any man who thinks women don’t like sex as much as men is unfortunate to never have met anyone like my wife.

“A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients? It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.”
I don’t have much to say on this one but included it because of what it says about lawyers…and by extension politicians.

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
I am going to use myself as the object lesson for this. Growing up, I never really had to apply myself to schoolwork. I was able to extract the maximum return from the minimum effort and if that meant being a B+ student instead an A student, that was fine with me. As a result, I never learned to really apply myself. When placed in situations where I was forced to, there were times I came very close to fumbling and failing. (Example: When I took integral calculus in university, one point lower on the final would have turned my D- into an F. And I still think that one point was a gift.)

“Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.”
When my wife was pregnant, we did not know the sex of our child to be. We both hoped for a girl (and my wife was sure it was). And when our daughter was born, I rejoiced in the fact that it was a girl. Why? It has something to do with my comfort level around women and my inability to understand certain male tendencies. I have spent the last ten years in an Irish dance school and been around hundreds of young girls. They are just a joy to behold and it is truly bittersweet watching these adorable girls grow into beautiful young women. I certainly experienced that with my own daughter.

“You live and learn. Or you don't live long.”
This is another way of saying, “Darwin was right.” Don’t believe me? Spend some time looking at stupid human tricks on YouTube.

“All cats are not gray after midnight. Endless variety –”
This is just another way of saying that unless you are familiar with cats and comfortable around them you cannot begin to understand how truly wonderful they are. I never had a pet growing up (unless you consider goldfish and turtles pets). It was not until I met one of my mother-in-law’s cats, a long-haired black female named Bitsy who seemed to prefer me to the anyone in the world that I began understanding that we do not choose cats. They choose to own us. They have infinitely different personalities and are as devoted to their person as any dog is to its master. The difference is that cats do not have masters. They are the ones who control the relationship and the sooner you reconcile yourself to that fact the happier will be your relationship with ANY cat.

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.”
Wow. How many years on this ball of dirt did I spend before I learned this? And then only after years on anti-depressants. Let me say that this is separate and distinct from loving someone. Through the worst of my bad times I always loved my wife. But Lazarus and I are referring to liking people. In the past, I found that my close relationships were based on deep attachments akin to love rather than liking these people. I didn’t much like myself and believed that unless there was that kind of deep attachment, they would not want to be my friend. But once I began liking the person in the mirror, I came to understand how easy it was to like a lot of people and consider them friends.

“A motion to adjourn is always in order.”
Aside from conforming to Roberts’ Rules of Order, anyone who has ever sat through a too long meeting will realize the wisdom of this. And with that, I will adjourn for today.

To be continued….