Day old reflections

To me, one of the biggest challenges in raising a son is raising him to be manly. Not stupidly manly, but virtuously manly - just, courageous, excellent. The English word "virtue" is derived from the latin virtus, from the latin vir, the word for man. Virtus, then, signifies courage and manliness in general. So virtuosity is manly by definition.

Something I've always recognized as glaringly obvious is that I'm not as manly as my father. Then again, his father - my grandfather - is Teddy Roosevelt reincarnate, so I imagine that my father must've felt the same way I do at some point in his life.

Regardless of how I think I turned out, I am forever appreciative of my dad for the manly instinct he was able to ingrain in me; though my shortcomings as both a man and a father be many, it is only thanks to him that I am even able to recognize them as such, and thanks to him that I have an ideal to strive for.

Marching through fatherhood, I continue to grow and mature, literally, every day, and every day, concurrently, I feel myself becoming more and more like my dad. I believe it was Kirk who articulated that the conservative impulse is a man's desire to walk in the paths that his father followed. I am conservative to the very core of my being.