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.  :)