An Hour of Truth 2

There was only a moment of silence before one of the geeks raised his hand. He was obviously affecting a tone for his own amusement, a complex acceptance of the dare and offering his own challenge. “So, Mr. Jansen, how come so many of the girls here swoon over you?”
He almost laughed. “Have you asked them why?”
The young man, half grinned. “It didn’t seem necessary. They chattered endlessly about your hair and beard, your muscles, your voice…”
Just beyond age forty, Mr. Jansen had been careful to maintain his fitness, though he wasn’t particularly large. And while none of the staff were permitted facial hair, nor much hair at all, he had a rugged outdoorsman look with a trim beard and mustache, and locks of graying hair which just touched his collar. This was matched with his resonant bass voice. His appearance was simply what he wanted to see in the mirror, with no particular attempt to cultivate some false image. He said, “Those don’t really matter. Girls tend to deceive themselves on such things.”
A couple of the young ladies let out an exasperated “uh” sound. The others scowled except for the Goth, who simply grinned.
He grinned himself. On the desktop, he held up two cupped hands about shoulder width apart. Shaking the left, he explained, “On the one hand, we all have a collection of wishes, desires and other wants which together can be referred to as ‘human need’. The path between them is not a direct route.” Shaking the right, “On the other hand, we have a solid possibility of meeting those needs. It’s not perfect, but it is the best of what’s possible on this plane of existence.” He paused a moment, grabbing the tray used for collecting the assignments turned in by the students, placing it in the center of the desk. He returned his hands to their former position. “There is a lot of stuff most of us have to get through before we even come close to what we can have. Most of us never get there, because we simply can’t negotiate all the crap we are taught to believe.”
One of the geeks shot back, “Crap like we are taught here in this school?”
He smiled. “That, and a lot more. Our whole society is built on false perception, teaching us to want things we can’t get, and to ignore what really is possible. Even when we obtain what society tells us we should want, some part of us knows it’s not quite right. I contend we have utterly false images of what men and women ought to be, and what makes either one of them desirable. Even when we encounter something we desire, we tend to deceive ourselves about why we want it.”
The thug raised his hand. “So what makes you da man?”
He took a deep breath, then said simply, “The mission.”