Inclinations

Studies have shown…

According to the leading experts…

Prevailing opinion insists…

The latest polls indicate…

My father always said…

The evidence declares…

Indisputably…

Without doubt…

We all keep some of our inclinations to ourselves.

That is because some of our inclinations seem to us to be

socially unacceptable, to put it nicely.

But I’d be willing to bet that my inclinations

are enough like your inclinations

that we would be surprised,

and possibly relieved,

with a strong lingering chance of embarrassment,

if we somehow discovered

that we shared similar inclinations.

Common human tendencies are what they are.

We keep them private and secret

in order to preserve a semblance of

dignity, maturity, sanity, humanity, and civilization.

We still all put our pants on
one leg at a time.

This is the great equalizing image of how most humans clothe themselves.

It is clean and mundane and true.

Meanwhile, our inclinations linger in the dark.