Macerate

Home now.  As good as being away is, there is something nice about being home.  Familiar surrounds.  Routine.
Having a dictionary on hand seems to be a mixed blessing though.  I did the shutting eyes and spinning the dictionary around thing.  I did not know if it was up or down.  The word my finger fell on today is one I have never used.  Macerate.
According to the dictionary I was using macerate is from a Latin word that can have two meanings today. “soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid:” and “cause to waste away by fasting.” 
I am not exploring the latter meaning as it is sure unlikely to happen to me if I can help it.  I do go without food on occasions, but I really dislike doing it.  Merril can tell you I know the exact time I have set to end it, and I do things to help the time go quickly.
It is the “soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid:” that has caught my attention.  There is a saying that the same sun that hardens the clay, melts the ice.  It seems to me there are circumstances where it may be good to “toughen up” or harden up but mostly I prefer to be the other way.
I do not want to be a hard old man at the end of my days.  It can mean I am more easily manipulated but I do prefer to be one that softens.  We watched a Canadian version of “You can’t ask that,” last night and there was a guy on that I felt was a prime candidate for hardness.  He seemed angry about everything, and all his responses were divisive.  What he said on occasion was true, but the way he said it would leave him a lonely person.
Some things I must defend with everything I have got, and other thing don’t matter much at all.  Either way, it seems to me, softness attracts while hardness repels.  Things bounce of hardened things whereas they tend to stick to softened things.