What determines Who

Reflecting on the week, and then more than the week, the question of "who are we" comes to mind? Mid week I had a opportunity to look at a video of two different young men in very different situations both very young men. One young man had taken a bath in the sink at work and posted it on the Internet and then with his slurred speech and tattooed body he just rambled on and on having found his spotlight, and then the other young man was in Germany with his family playing the piano in a international competition. His father had taken the video with a great deal of pride. It was posted for friends and family and perhaps to help build his credentials. Two kinds of pride. What a difference in the course of two lives.

John Ruskin was a 19th Century English critic who said, "Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is, "What do you like?" Tell me what you like , and I'll tell you what your are."

David O McKay wrote in his book, True to the Faith, "I will know what you are if you tell me what you think about when you do not have to think"

I wondered some about the idea of "time when you don't have to think". Good subject for thought, by the way. Time is unforgiving. It happens. The way we fill it might just be our real distance run in life. I suppose you can fill it with thought or actions but we shape who we are as we do so.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more- you'll be a man, my son.