I sat back, impressed with the deep philosophical answers others gave, revealing arcane knowledge I don't have and enjoying their insights. I had no answer I could cobble together. But in the middle of the night, I awoke, with images of 'the modern'. I find myself reacting with the 'gut', rather than the 'intellect'. First to define 'post modern', I think of what is 'modern'.

What is 'modern' to me? I react to this emotionally.

I am preparing for seventh grade. I go to the big junior high now. It is sprawled out large on a wide exspanse of land. I am buying clothes for the experience. The nice department store, KLINES, has sedate clothes for the miss on the first floor. It is from there my brown blouse, short chocolate brown skirt and brown plaid skirt are chosen. But up on the second floor, it is the balcony, and that's where the 'cool' 'modern' stuff is. All the bright tye dye, and bell bottom pants illumined by black light and plenty of psychedelic designs are there for those who dare. It is all so 'modern', and it has a magnetic call.

Still, yet in my short brown skirt, size 5(!), I am feeling new and modern. I am not wearing the fuddy duddy clothes of my gramma.

Modern' is me and my cousin listening to the 45 of Cher singing 'Gyspies, Tramps and Thieves'. I hear her husky voice with power sing 'They called us gypsies, tramps and thieves, but every night their men would come around.' The passion she evoked was 'modern'. I wondered at what it would be to be brave to flaunt standards, yet have something people secretly wanted.

Meanwhile, at school, the 45 would play, and Tony Orlando and Dawn would sing so lightly, ''Knock three times if you want me, twice on the pipe if the answer is no'.' What is this 'want' Orlando sings of? Lust so 'modern' and new.

Next year, Aretha Franklin was singing 'killing me softly with his song', about a man who didn't want her. Passion again, and so new to my young mind.

What was 'modern' to me? The 'new', the different, that which my parents did not do. It lured with promise of the exciting.

Over thirty years later, I cannot shake the initial impressions of the word 'modern'. What does my mind make of the concept 'post-modern'? I don't know. Those ugly cubes of minimalism, no bright color splashes of the impressionistic free spirits? All excitement reduced to nothing, with just the barest hint something even exists? What is the draw in that?

Does it seem 'oh we are all grown up now, and don't need that excitement anymore?' Is it the last twitch before we all turn robot like, with minimalism? Is it 'we can define away anything?' These are my Emotional reactions.

And now it is 2004. Cher's song of 1970 is now 'old'. Young people today listening to it may not 'get' what we in 1970 got out of it. And yet, back in the days of Socrates, did not the people of those days have the things which seemed 'modern' to them, to which the thrill of discovery and newness enticed them with promise? I'm sure through out all ages there must be some strand of this. 'Modern' upsets the stasis of the past. 'Modern' promises change and renewal. 'Modern' is the spirit of Set, which would challenge the old ways of doing things. If we be 'modern', we grow not old in spirit. In my heart, I am ever dancing, ever dancing. When I am eighty five, I think I shall be ever the same.

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