Re: "If"

FFlores wrote:

> I don't have time to do right now, but in the
> meantime I'd like to know what is pitch-and-toss,
> and what's the intent of the two verses "If you
> can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds'
> worth of distance run". I don't understand clearly
> what it means. :-(  Is it an idiom, or just a metaphor?
I would say that the "minute" is unforgiving because it will pass,
whether you have accomplished anything or not.  The right thing to do,
 according to the narrator, is fill that unforgiving minute with sixty
seconds' worth of accomplishment -- or metaphorically, "distance run"
in the race of life.

I'm not sure I like being exhorted to accomplish things by means of
fear -- the fear of having wasted my life failing to "run distance."

> I'm curious, also, about the things your cultures tend
> to associate with "being a man" (or a mature person in
> general). [Maybe that should go over to Conculture]
I think that the main thing associated with "being a man" in the
Sawila culture is having a singing voice with a somewhat different
range...  And being slightly more likely to mate with a female.  But I
didn't make up the Sawila culture; I just made up a big of language
for them. :)

Ed Heil -------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net
             "QuchwIj Dayachqang'a' bang-wIj?"
        (KHOOCH-widge da-YATCH-kang-a BANG-widge?)
       Klingon for "Want to stroke my forehead, babe?"
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