Every Mother's Lesson

Some days it is hard to understand why we do things. Other days, it’s hard to understand why we don’t do much of anything at all. And on the Friday Afternoon of Life, as the crude indulgences of happy hour begin to have their unrelenting effect, the fact that few lasting resolutions ever unleash from most human inquisition can be a real pisser.

Over the past few months, a great deal of time was wasted while thinking about this little problem. This particularly irrational interlude slowly spun out of control as questions grew upon questions like the gradually emerging branches of a desperately clinging vine. The damning light of worldly existence alternately flashed on and off in its self-serving, self-contained corner but never gave more than a shadowy clue to the cosmic uncertainty hidden everywhere else. It was enough to make one curious son wonder what, exactly, did our mothers ever teach us about the give and take of our action and inaction, the yin-yang of our doing and undoing, our delicate tip-toe dance on the balancing beam of a brain limited only by its own innate blindness.

Yeah, that’s exactly what it was like this past summer. Whew! Man!

Naturally, this low period saw The Wife regularly shake her head with displeasure, The Man angrily demand his pint of blood, and The Weary Fool silently withdraw to safer, cooler confines. A cautious retreat was deemed necessary and we all know that story.

But from this momentary drought of thought a fragrant blossom did bloom. The idea was then finally settled upon that, when speaking generally of most things in the universe, of course, what it is and what it is about is not nearly as significant as why it is in the first place.

Well, it’s obvious to most old dogs that bold action is required in many scenarios where inaction is admittedly dangerous. Calculated intervention, smartly designed to thwart certain threats and quickly prepared when catastrophic omens are revealed, is the legendary stuff of human progress.

But, hopefully now you can see, it is comforting for many seasoned turkey hunters and cave dwellers alike to agree that pure, indifferent laziness has its time and place as well. Without such indolence, any uncontested agreement like this would be impossible.

Thus, the truth of “the why” is in the hardened, crusted pudding, so to speak.

What is described, then, is a lesson in heavy patience and slothful endurance stirred with not the least bit of tireless dedication. Only within a strict framework of painful lethargy does the mind finally clear itself for true enlightenment, anyway. To understand why, one must cease what it is and divorce from what it is about to really get to the heart of the matter.

But perhaps writing is not just a foolish pastime of the chronically idle as I once feared. Perhaps the codified methods of art, style and content of what is written are not nearly as critical as I was once led to believe. Perhaps, if I had read Dr. Maryanne Wolf’s words earlier in life, I would know that writing is simply a part of an intricate and evolutionary process. Perhaps, then I would have more quickly understood how the uneasy balance of writing and reading advances our miraculous development in ways that we can only dream about or view from a microscopic level.

In fact, after reading more of Dr. Wolf, perhaps I might lazily agree that writing is the magical fuel of our dreams, that the act of reading quenches our natural thirst for wisdom, and one day this unique give-and-take practice will be known as the original elixir of human awareness itself.

Without a book or two to support us, I might suggest, what would we really know to say about our own lonely, muted soul?

Maybe then I could say the ancient concept of human wisdom was inaccurate if not immature, that the fears of old Socrates were misplaced. Maybe then I could say that writing, no matter how bad, is truly good.

Some may claim “rationalization” but I prefer to name it a “deduction of inquiry” and I find that selective position incredibly, finally encouraging--especially since I’ve been happily out of work for the last few months.

Honestly, it may leave one to think that the universal answers are not nearly as important as the unending questions, not to mention the slowly unwinding or chaotic paths we may follow as a result. Such questions lead the laziest among us to agree that it is not the cold words in the book but the warm analysis which comes after it that counts. And preferably, in my case anyway, that profound analysis will come sneaking in on the heals of a decent afternoon nap.

So that Proust quote, “that which is the end of their wisdom is but the beginning of ours", may very well be the only reasonable and permanent lesson that every mother should teach her child in the beginning.

Cheers,

Mb