Fly on the Wall

I have a secret.

I read dead people.

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Their books I mean.  It's a dangerous habit though.  You know why?  Because, in doing so, you just might learn something.  Such as this:

Around 380 BC the Greek philosopher Plato, student of Socrates, wrote a book called, The Republic.  It is considered to be one of the great works of Western Philosophy.  Worth the time to read.  Seriously.



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The book includes one of the most tragic stories every written (in my opinion) - "The Allegory of the Cave".    It is written in the context of a dialogue between Socrates, Plato's teacher, and Glaucon, Plato's brother. (See, it is worth reading if only to hear such great names!!)  The allegory is told by Socrates, in which he tales the tale of a group of captives.  These captives have lived their entire lives chained in a cave, facing a blank wall. There is a fire lit behind them and the chained people have spent their entire lives watching the shadows on the blank wall, cast by figures passing in front of the fire.  They see only shadows, and hear only echoes. 

Having never seen or known anything else, the shadows and echoes are as close as the prisoners have ever come to viewing reality.   Insofar as they even believe that the shadows and echoes ARE reality to its full extent.  They have a small world, which their mind is completely able to wrap around, and they think they fully understand reality. 

 

Socrates then explains how a philosopher (literally: "one who seeks/loves/has knowledge and wisdom" or "one who thinks") is akin to a prisoner who has been freed from the cave and is able to realize the extent of his previous ignorance.  What he once thought was the fullness of truth, he now recognizes as, literally, only shadows and echoes of truth. 

(Predictably, the most tragic part of the story follows later - when the freed prisoner goes back to other captives and tries to free them.  They shun him, ridicule him and refuse to believe him. They are too comfortable in the belief that shadows and echoes are the full extent of truth that they a) can't wrap their mind around the idea that there might be more and, b) hate the freed prisoner for trying to push them onwards toward the truth.)

This story haunts me.  I feel it loom over my shoulder, like a dark stranger following me down the street.  What do I think that I know, which in reality is just shadows and echoes and not true knowledge?  And the real tragedy is that I can't answer that, I can't know what I don't know.  You know?  (Sorry, couldn't resist the redundancy.)  



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Such is the paradox of education and knowledge.  The more you learn, the more you realize that you don't know.  Education - and by that I mean truly learning - is the key to discovering your own ignorance.  You think you have a handle on the world, and then....BAM you learn something that opens your eyes to a whole realm that up to now you never even imagined existed.   

Back to the point:  Any given moment I can look back at myself in the past - last week, last year, 10 years ago - and see clearly how far I have come.  And I can say to myself, "Past Self, you really thought you had your act together.  You really thought you knew something.  But hindsight makes ignorance glaringly obvious.  Clearly, Past Self, you were just chasing shadows and echos."  

I can tell myself that, and I do (though maybe not in those exact words) but I know that I am still chained to the wall of ignorance and my "Future Self" is going to look back on me in this moment and say the exact same thing.  It is a vicious cycle.  So I repeat - I am haunted by that story

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So, all I can do is strive.  To keep learning, chasing secrets waiting to be unlocked.  To keep analyzing, trying to expose the smoke and echoes.  To refuse to be chained and fixated on a blank wall.  And to seek reality in reality, instead of seeking reality in an empty wall.

Just as a side note:  All of this wall talk may bring to mind "the wall" that our society now seems to be fixated on.  (Yes, I mean Facebook.)  Disclaimer: I do not hate social media.  In fact, I think it is a great tool for business, socialization, etc.  When it is used as a tool.  I mean, a man runs a chainsaw, the chainsaw doesn't run the man.  And you can imagine the tragedy that would befall if he tried to let it. (You can tweet that.)

Yet, due to the addicting nature of social media we often find the tool controlling us.  I rarely log on to Facebook.  Not because I dislike it, but because I like it too much - an hour goes by before I've even realized it and I still haven't accomplished the task I originally logged in to do.  That was an hour wasted.  An hour I could have spent accomplishing something, learning something, really investing in myself or in another human being.  (Again, not that our social media can't be used as a tool to do these things, but I for one will admit to it causing me a LOT of wasted time also.)  Maybe, just maybe, the fixed attention on the wall of constant status updates and random pictures might be leaving us hollow inside - or worse, feeling like we've been torn apart by a chainsaw.  Maybe, just maybe, in doing so we're following only shadows and echoes of reality?

The irony is that I just spent time writing something that few people will actually read.  Why?  Because it isn't on Facebook.  :)

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Like a Sharpie Mustache

You know those fabled camp pranks that you pull on innocent sleeping people?  Hand in a bowl of hot water, sharpied-on facial hair, shaving cream in hand and feather to the nose...you get the idea.  Our house is a bit like that.

Ruthless.

I've been a little tired lately and we've been out of coffee for two days.  This morning I sat down in the recliner to feed Thomas while Sophie and Elijah played with blocks at my feet.  A moment of blissful peace.  And I promptly fell asleep.

10 minutes later I awoke to this:

The good news?  Body cream makes a great hair conditioner and fabric softener, and our basement now smells like "Night Blooming Jasmine." 

Danke Uncle Paul

This was mentioned in the last post - but I figured a little more appreciation was called for.  While in Germany, Elijah's Uncle/Godfather Paul got him an uber lederhosen.  Here are some more pictures of the dapper boy.  (And Paul, please consider this your thank you note...)

Uber Halloween

I know, I am probably one of thousands of proud mommies posting "super cute" Halloween pictures of their kids for people who neither 1) care.  Nor, 2) think the kids are nearly as cute as the mom does.  I admit it, and I'm okay with that.

But first, a confession.  My kids were not going to go trick-or-treating.  Not out of some deep idealistic objection to All Hallows Eve...although a bit of that is present and I wish a bigger deal was made out of today's Feast of All Saints as opposed to a commercialized hype over the day of preparation for the feast...but out of sheer laziness.  Yes, you read that right.  Go ahead and put my "Loser Mom of the Year" award in the mail.

But lets cut through the shock and ask "Why?".  My kindergartener was getting a party at school, so she would be pacified.  Other than that I have a recently turned 3 year old, a 1.5 year old and a 2 month old.  Logic told me that I should not lose sleep making costumes and energy dragging the kids around town when they wouldn't remember the event in a year.  Besides, I knew that I would end up hiding the candy from them and eating it all myself.  The real moment of triumph?  When I realized that we live miles out in the country and therefore no trick-or-treaters would be knocking on our door - the night could pass as any other night.  I realized that I might actually pull this ruse off!

But it turns out that my youngest sister did not want to go trick-or-treating alone and my mom offered to take my kids along too.  What?  You're going to attempt the feat that I was too cowardly to do - take my kids and give me an evening alone with my husband???  Suddenly neither laziness or deep idealistic objections were anywhere to be found!  The only obstacle was pulling together costumes in less than 24 hours, but thanks to our dress-up bin and Uncle Paul's recent gift (see below) things came together pretty well.  So without further ado:

Being 5, Agnes is quite old enough to pick her own costume (as she informed me.)  Luckily she picked something that 1) we could pull together and 2) wasn't too scandalous for boring old mom to agree to.  Nice classic cowgirl.

While Uncle Paul (Elijah's Godfather) was in Germany he picked up this sweet Lederhosen for his beloved Godson/nephew.  It took a while to convince Elijah that his pockets were actually the ones he has his hands in in the picture - he was insistent that the front flap was actually the pockets, which as you can imagine made the costume considerably more controversial.

And Josephine (Sophie), the little pumpkin, refused to look at the camera.  Oh well.  She wasn't thrilled about the whole situation, especially (what she considered to be) her stupid hat.  But then a few trick-or-treaters showed up at mom's house before they got out the door and mom pulled out the candy bowl.  Suddenly Sophie's whining was gone and she was intently interested.  Much more agreeable about the prospects of the evening you'd say.  However, while more excited about going out when she realized candy would be involved, she quickly put together the following logic:
1. We're going out to get candy.
2. Yet, you have a whole bowl of candy here.
3.  Therefore, it seems like we might be adding some unnecessary steps...

I didn't get any pictures of the baby, because he was sleeping.  Which allowed me to get pictures of the big kids.  But he was wearing a jack-o-lantern onesie that matched his big sis (thanks for the hand-me-down Mrs. Lay!!)

So, good news - I'm not a complete loser mom.  And, the kids will remember this Halloween if only because I took pictures that will live on.  And, most importantly, I now have lots of candy to hide from the kids and eat myself.  Don't worry, I'll let them have the kinds that I don't like.  :)

Living Vicariously

The St. Louis Cardinals won the 2011 World Series last night.  Great rejoicing here.  Matt taught our near 2 year old to cheer "Go Cards!"  So she ran around the house last night yelling "Geek Carts!!!" Whatever those are...

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I must begin by admitting that I am not what you would call a "traditional sports fan."  I admit this with some shame as I am married to an athlete who played college football and our family has survived the past 5 years partly on money made through coaching.  My history of non-avid fanmanship (yes, I made that word up) is in large part due to my ignorance about the games, rules, how they work, etc.  And things, in general, hold my interest and support much longer when they make sense to me.  Which brings me to my next point:  Being A Sports Fan Has Never Made Sense.  (To me)


At least a fan at the major league level.  I can understand being the fan of your school's team, or your child's team, or, say, the team that your husband coaches...that type of thing makes sense.  But it has always puzzled me why someone would follow and support a team of players that have no idea who you are.  Yet, the athletes play and perform and are encouraged by the fact that there are thousands of fans following their progress and supporting them - even though the athlete doesn't have any idea who most of them are, specifically.  Such is the paradox I suppose.  (Please understand, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it!  Simply that the reason of WHY tends to elude me.)  I know there are lots of obvious answers - we enjoy the entertainment, the suspense of games, the strategy...but those reasons are...obvious.  We can find those things in other activities.  There must be something deeper, some driving secret that deals with our essence as human beings.  How else would sport, in its different capacities, have remained so captivating for so many centuries?

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Which brings me back to the World Series.  Yes, the St. Louis Cardinals won in Game 7.  (Again, great rejoicing here.  Sorry Ranger fans.)  However, I believe that it is Game 6 that will live on in glory.

A quick lesson for those whose sports knowledge, or lack of, rivals mine: In the World Series two baseball teams play a series (get it?) of games.  The team that wins the majority of games is declared the winner.  Four games have to be won before a winner is called, so up to 7 games total are played.  You may have noticed that I mentioned the Cards winning in Game 7?  That means it was pretty neck and neck and the series required all 7 games to be played before a team won 4.  Makes for good entertainment.

So, back to game 6.  We were "watching" it on the computer because we don't have TV at our house.  "Watching" is a term I use loosely because our internet was so slow that there was an extreme delay and long pauses.  We should have just pulled out the radio.  Anyway, the beginning of the game was not good.  The Rangers had already won 3 games and the Cardinals had won 2.  That meant the Cardinals needed to win in order to tie the series and be able to play a 7th game.  If the Rangers won the series would be over and they would be crowned victorious.  (Although, they don't actually get crowned.)

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I realize that the suspense here is nil because you already know the ending.  But for the sake of my amusement I am going to give you the play by play from our house:  By the 7th inning Cardinals were losing 7 to 4, which is a big gap in baseball.  They had already committed multiple errors and the game just didn't seem to be going well.  It was getting pretty late, and a school night of course, so Matt decided the sun had set on the Cardinal's season and with a heavy heart he went to bed.  Around 1:30 am I was up with the baby and decided to see what the final score had been.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the punch line you already knew was coming.  And I'm sure you've been hearing about this on every radio and TV station for the past couple days, so I'll keep it brief.  I was groggy and smelling like baby spit up when I sat down at the computer, but slowly achieved coherency and then stunned disbelief which eventually gave way to amazed excitement.  Apparently in the 9th inning (typically the final inning) the Cardinals had rallied to tie the game.  Then, in the 11th inning, St. Louis player David Freese hit a walk off home run to win the game.  Cardinals won and were back in the picture.  Game 7 would be played after all.  And, you already know the rest of the story.

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I returned my attention to the task at hand (that is, battle of wills with an infant who refuses to sleep) with renewed energy.  And trust me, anyone who has ever been in a battle of will against an infant knows that you need all the energy renewal you can find!

That's when it hit me.  The nail was hit on the head, so to speak, and one of the biggest reasons we are captivated by sports became clear.  Glory.  Triumph.  Not just in the simple sense that, when "our team" wins, we share vicariously in their glory and triumph.  But deeper. It's in the human spirit.  We love seeing a team that refuses to be conquered.  We feel their strength apparent so deeply that it makes us feel strengthened in our own spirit.  And that inspiration makes our own spirit a little less prone to being conquered.

In short, we all want to know that no matter how bad things appear, no matter what odds are stacked against us and obstacles loom in our path, that we can strive onward and emerge victorious.  Even if all the world gives up on us, all of our fans say "well, good run anyway" and head to bed - in the dark of the night we keep trudging onward to slay our dragons and greet the morning as the conquerors rather than the conquered.  Sports remind us that even in our darkest hours the saga may end with our hitting a walk off home run and winning our game.  Sports inspire us to dream, strive and ultimately, survive. And for that, typical non-sports fan as I may be, I say: "Play ball!"

And this guy is my boy!!  Photo compliments of Bobbi - read her ever amusing and wise blog here.

If you enjoyed the black and white baseball photographs throughout this post, click here to view a treasury of these and similar art that I collected.  For fans for baseball, black and white photography and wasting time.