To My Wife 18

His father is transcendent.  His mor is nurturing.  He and his sister are raised in the land of his far;  it is called Cuyahoga.  Yet, when he reaches the age of adulthood, he decides to spend his service year in the land where his mor is raised;  it is Brasil.  That is where he is at the moment.  It is the obligation of every preparatory school graduate to provide a year of civil service in contribution to community.  His assignment is within civil construction:  building high-rise passivehaus residential complexes within a favela in São Paulo.  His ideal assignment is to be posted within Rio De Janeiro, because of all the stories he hears.  However, he is very grateful to be stationed in São Paulo;  and he estimates that he is close enough to make excursions and create his own Rio stories.  He contemplates what is preferable for him to do upon the completion of his service year.  His parents emphasise the option of university, and indeed, he secures a number of favourable offers in numerous continents.  However, he also experiences a considerable amount of academic fatigue from the strong scholastic indoctrination and culture within which his parents, family, and community raise him.  He is without any substantial resentment or rebellion;  he appreciates the rich intellectual and pluralistic environment in which he is raised.  Yet, amidst all the genuinely benevolent teachings regarding Universal citizenship and responsibility, he is interested in actually seeing the 3^rd World, Earth, 1^st hand.  He wants to see the places, smell the food, touch the water, hear the people, and breathe the air.  Regular video conferencing, films, and written words are all insufficient for him to know the lands, the peoples, the cultures, the histories, the soulfulness.  He considers, after Brasil, to live a little while with his mor’s relatives in India and China;  perhaps also with his far’s relatives in Scandinavia and Africa;  of course Iberia,  ישראל, and Arabia are “must visits;”  and he has so many dear friends in additional locations.  The pragmatics of Universal friendships and diplomacy are very much challenging.  And amidst the widely prevalent Peace and prosperity that his generation experiences throughout the Earth, that is the serious dilemma that confronts his generation:  how to genuinely maintain all the global and Universal friendships that his generation forges;  particularly amidst respective, proximate obligations and allegiances;  how to build upon the global and Universal reconciliation that his parents’ generation is able to establish;  and how to proficiently answer the continually unfolding dilemmas that perpetually emerge;  knowing that a deterioration of these friendships and recessitivism into tribalism, nationalism, and sectarianism threatens the erosion of this Peace and Prosperity.  It is a heavy load to carry as he reclines within his lounge chair amidst the Copa Cabana.  He recites a blessing and sips from his mango orange blended drink.  The yellow Sunshine is warm and inviting.  The blue ocean water looks refreshing.  He is able to satisfy his contemplations through recognising that the solution exists exactly within what he is doing at that moment:  resting after an arduous few days of building homes and livelihoods for his community.  He glances towards his mobile device as he awaits for some friends to arrive.