How are things going in Cilicia? As you know I have taken a leave of absence from my duties to visit with an American family an decipher what holds them together. While being here I have noticed and documented many differences as well as similarities between American fathers and Roman fathers. The love that is shared between an American father and his children is just as strong as that of the love a Roman father has for his own children. It is just that this love is shown and carried out in two different ways.
Upon my arrival here, I first noticed that American male children are more independent of there father's authority. Yes the father holds ultimate authority over the child but, because of a certain period of development referred to as adolescence, seems to inhibit the child with the ability to maintain a fairly distant life from father. A life saturated with full frontal images of self preservation and one's own internal need to gain wealth. This intrigued me very much, because as you know, in Cilicia male children are instructed upon what they will and will not invest their time. Yes, there is a sense of independence, but that independence serves only to let the male know that he is indeed a man who is contributing to society as he should. In Rome, the male children are more focused on whatever predetermined goal has been set for them, while American male children or as they say, teenagers, are allowed to drift from interest to interest, with no direction, while being chastised for their "lack of ambition" but are supported financially by the same parents who chastise those actions. This is only one of the faults that seem to make up the "wool" that American people collectively as a whole have deliberately pulled down over there eyes.
One of the faults that I find most interesting is the lack of nationalism among the American people. It seems as though nationwide unity is only achieved through the slaughter and mutilation of some third world country who, because of antiquated militaries, can not defend itself from the sheer, overwhelming financial power of America's government and military.
