The word “trophy, has its historical roots in past monuments to victory, and is contemporarily understood to signify an award given in recognition of a victory, or unique accomplishment. However, certain trophies appropriate to notable achievements are purely intrinsic and not exemplified by the traditional cup, plaque, or gold medal. We submit that this category of award, albeit unsung, is customarily representative of human victories, uncontrovertedly more esteemed than those represented by temporal, physical representations.
At this early stage of the present writing, we would like to plead “Guilty” to the understandable assertion of any reactive indictment that its context is conceivably self-serving (we are, relevantly, 89 years of age), but would assert as a mitigating defense that we esteem the subject, nevertheless, to be valuable and, conceivably of interest to the reader.
Our contextual trophy is implicitly awarded, in notable contrast to the plethora of flashy television advertisements for cosmetics and face-lifts, and silently, but reverentially, in recognition of the laudable achievement of a life of recognizable achievement of wisdom and mature perception. Unlike the ubiquitous, ephemeral desire for an eternal youthful appearance in the inevitable face of a developing maturity, evidenced by the discernible aging and diminution of physical capability, but, instead, by the personal accumulation of wisdom, from years of chosen enriching experience, supplemented by a lifetime of inquiry and saubrious reading.
The highly venerated empirical philosopher, John Locke, famously declared that Man’s knowledge is derived solely from his (personal) empirical experience. Accordingly, those members of the human species who have thus accumulated wisdom during their alloted years of perceptive and thoughtful life experience, have justly earned the salutary acknowledgement of a fulfilled life and are inarguably deservant of the thematic “trophy” of human achievement; despite their observably concommitant natural physical decline, Such achievement makes appropriate the thematically laudable “trophy” awardable for the successful attainment of a fulfilled life.
Notably, this contextually esteemed and invaluable trophy is not displayed in a glass-enclosed cabinet nor on a prominent shelf in the study; it is ineluctably discernible by rewarding interaction with the aged, often wrinkled and physically disabled, but wise, trophy winner.
-p.