I am probably one of the last people on earth that knows more about soup and how to eat it than is necessary. I even have silver flat ware from my grandmother that includes two kinds of soup spoons --- one for cream soups and one for clear soups. And not only are the spoons different, but the bowls from which those soups are eaten are different too. The cream soup bowl is wide and flat with a thick rim, and the clear soup bowl is round, sometimes with handles and sometimes without, but always with a narrow rim. And to increase this deluge of knowledge that is no longer part of modern manners, one eats these soups differently. The cream soup is scooped away from the diner, while the clear soup is pushed towards the diner. And at eight years of age, I knew these two things. Yes, I did.
Is this something I should cling to as terribly important as I age? Should I be trying to inflict my knowledge of soup on a generation that does not even want dining rooms in their homes anymore? I can hear the resounding no from here. And I agree. These things are no longer part of the current world, and my soup facts are simply a curious tale from a long-ago time.
This example might be painfully obvious, but what about others that are a little closer to the bone. Personally, I do not want to hear the ‘f bomb’ from anyone, but that is a forlorn hope. I think that, perhaps, pajama bottoms are not appropriate for every occasion, and I am very tired of being introduced to every crack and crevice of the body in line in front of me. But I am not going to make a fuss about this as much as I dislike it.
So, what do we do as we age, and the world slowly moves away from us as well as from the standards of our youth. The answer is that not all the dictums of that ancient time are worth preserving. Some of them are still worthwhile, but many of them can easily go by the wayside. Perhaps, each of us needs to examine ourselves to figure out what are our core principles, those that are very close to our hearts, and let the rest go. This should be an important list, but a short one. And soup should not be on it.