DC to BC :: as your sun sets, our sun rises.

so back in high school, in my sidwell days, this semi-foxy lady of a teacher (who shall remain nameless in case she ever reads this) taught my 11th grade english class this book that you see above. you already know i didn’t read the joint. but i did hit the spark notes, as well as attend class regularly, and took away the one aspect about the book that was incredible: self-improvement.

so anyway, dude was a G, ok? like, we’re talking 18th century. if you think like i think, you picture every bamma looking kinda like this man:

the worst part is, this man was probably doing great work with the ladies. so in a land where the most suspect characters get the most love, you’ve got to do something to keep yourself sane. so a young ben frank was constantly working on improving himself. he was born into a poor family. i’m talking like, he had 16 siblings, and his dad, the breadwinner, was making candles and soap. that was his occupation. so he was probably working at 8 months of age. but he taught himself how to write elegantly by mimicing the style of authors he enjoyed reading, and he read anything and everything he could get his hands on. he taught himself how to swim during a period where swimming was like owning a maybach. nobody really could do it. now the man is in the swimming hall of fame. i know if i tried that, it would be a wrap.

perhaps the most impressive and respectable self-improvement tactic he had was moral perfection. read on:

As a youth, Franklin didn’t always behave responsibly. At the age of 20, he decided to change the direction of his life by embarking on a course of what he called “moral perfection.” He created a list of four resolutions to follow. He resolved to become more frugal so that he could save enough money to repay what he owed to others. He decided that he would be very honest and sincere “in every word and action.” He promised himself to be industrious “to whatever business I take in hand.” Lastly he vowed “to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a manner of truth” and to “speak all the good I know of every body.”

Out of these four resolutions, Franklin came up with a set of thirteen virtues, which he practiced methodically. He wrote each of the virtues down in a book and practiced one of the virtues for a week, trying to perfect it. At the end of the week, he would evaluate his performance. At the end of thirteen weeks, he would start back on the first virtue again.

good grief.

why am i discussing this? partially because summer break is the perfect time for everybody to work on some self-improvement, or at least self-realization. it’s like me coming to grips with the fact that i’m not really from DC. i was driving around downtown and i realized i didn’t know what any of these buildings were, nor did i know anything outside of NW. one quadrant!? come on! how about SE, SW, and NE! i took it upon myself to explore each region, as well as PG county and howard county, as often as possible. i can’t claim a city i don’t even know. virginia…that’s another story. but at least let me know what the suitland parkway looks like, or where the navy yard is located. thank god for that DMV stuff. i can claim that and nobody can do anything. i’m the “M” in DMV.

all i’m saying is, work on improving yourself in the off-season, so you can be rocking people on the court when you’re back. metaphorically speaking. ben did it in the 1700’s!

really, i’m just typing. this is to get me back in the blog groove. yea, it’s a weak post. but you gotta start somewhere.