I had an odd dream.

There was a performance of a Wagner opera, which is odd because I'm not terribly fond of Wagner, (though Tristan und Isolde does have some lovely passages) for most of the usual reasons - it's basically heavy metal, in a bad way, and linked to romanticism, nationalism, vegetarianism, and other things that are bad, and is prejudicial against Nibelungen, who are a fine, proud people once you get to know them, and very generous in a discreet way, so long as you don't bring up das Rheingold.

But, for some reason, in this dream, there was a Wagner performance.  Something in the lyric caught my attention, and, in accord with Dream Logic, I was looking immediately at a critical edition of the libretto - a thick volume, with full apparatus, including extended notes, portions left out of the canonical version of the opera as generally performed, etc.  One of these ommitted arias was in the form of an opinion poll whose content dynamically changed as different audiences experienced the opera.  (Which would be a great thing for someone other than me to do.)

A topic in this poll was the finest goal to aspire to in life, and the leading answer was "to be despised".

The more I think on this, the more sublime a conception it seems to me.  We ought, perhaps, to be judged not by the number and quality of our friends, but the type of people from whom we tend to draw fire.  Given how most people are...  Besides which, seen from an aesthetic point of view, one may choose any fundamental orientation for one's life - why not something with a little flair?