If I am honest, one thing that has deterred me from writing on several occasions is the general lack of readers, i.e. not only readers of my own blog in particular, but also readers of virtually anything but fb updates and tweets. And if I were to refer to my blog alone in particular, that is there too. I mean, what's the point when somebody writes with nobody to read it for them?It is like talking to the wall. Often people with grave identity crises (who would have themselves called 'elites' without bothering to tell the difference between raising themselves to that regard or lowering the comparison to suit their purpose), after fast-frequency hopping between several channels of conversation united by a common thread of jejuneness and discovering a network failure on each do sometimes refer to my blog page only to say that they have seen it, and it was nice! Seen my page, for god's sake! As if I'd designed it! I mean, come on - its mostly white with a few green and yellow bubbles for decoration that would bore a cretinous nincompoop - but perhaps I am overdoing it. There is more to life than that, and even a dimwit like me can see. If I could for once place my finger on the precise things that did matter I'd be a happier man.
I have decided not to have a baby (he he, funny that - for I do not even have a 'girlfriend', and am certainly not hermaphroditic). Not now ( the deciding part, that is), but a decade or more ago - something stemming from pollution, global warming and the general insipidity of life and the gross indifference of us humans towards making an effort to change any of it. However, that is another story, but right now, hypothetically, suppose I did have a child of my own - what then? What kind of values would I teach the budding brain-killer? The more I think about stuff like these, the more befuddled I get. Sometimes I say to myself that I'd teach it nothing at all save for rudiments like 'fire burns', 'food is good', and 'it stings like crazy sitting butt-naked on an anthill'. For the rest, I'd just allow nature (or what's left of it) to run its course. That would, perhaps, be the ideal. But I do not think I shall have the strength in me to sit unfazed were it to smoke pot in the living room at age 10. So I must do more. One thing is certain - I would not interfere with its personal tastes and orientations any more than is absolutely necessary. I would maybe even not so much as say that 'books are good' or 'you should read' beyond a 'this is what a book looks like - if you wanna know what it feels like, too, you must read into it' were it not for such a noncommittal attitude being a serious impediment to conversation. So maybe, I would just contain myself with telling it stuff I like or would do in a given circumstance, and hope that it would learn to take a hint. The kid would then devise its own interpretations for stuff that goes on around, formulate its own code of conduct, and so forth, and never be bogged down by the null and void norms of the society.
On the other hand I do not live on a deserted island. The 'society' menace looms at large and you cannot simply shut it out by adding an extra padlock to your front gate. Worse still, I wonder whether you'd be truly happy doing so, so why not embrace it as it is? We thrive on a purpose. It feels so much better to make believe that we are doing something constructive and our efforts are directed towards a particular goal even though we know, all of us that its ashes to ashes, dust to dust in the end. Without all that, it would be like a childhood devoid of dolls. So we go on playing our own customized versions of 'House', 'Monopoly', and buying new toys to dispel the monotony of it. And this is where society come in. It is the filling station of purpose. The caveman is lonely and tired and thinks its to his advantage that other people come and do stuff to help him out. So he goes to his brother caveman in the neighbouring cave and they decide to live together. Now, when an attack of the ol' gouts prevents him from going out to hunt, his brother caveman is there to lend him a leg o' mammoth to prevent him from starving. But he soon discovers that this arrangement has a price, and the leg o' mammoth must be returned at a later date, for which he would have to work a touch harder. Eventually other cavemen pitch in, and they have a colony. And thus empowered, he learns that instead of going out for food, you can bring food closer to him by manipulating the environment around him, and in the due course he ceases to become a caveman and becomes a producer. In his colony he learns that young so-and-so is a sissy and would do whatever he'd be told to avoid a beating and messing around with old whaddyacallit would land him with a cracked skull. This is why man teaches children to respect their elders, as is the case with freshmen and seniors in college, the subordinates and the administrators at the workplace - a tendency predominating almost every aspect of our daily lives.
To ensure that his neighbour does not chop him in half upon discovering that the meat the former had been saving for the winter has magically materialized on the latter's dinner table, they establish a penal system and a judiciary that sorts such issues in a 'civilized' manner. Other administrative departments like the one for food and agriculture, one for health et cetera spring up. And to administer the administrative departments, the department supreme, whose beauty lies in the fact that it basically administers nothing - the government, is founded. And now is the weird part. This government, composed of so many ex-cavemen, suddenly starts to behave as a single cavemen with an ego problem. These cavemen of the new world, like the original cavemen, also colonize to become even bigger cavemen. But, not without a fight though, for if Tom and Dick fuse to form Caveman III, Tom would not agree to fuse until Dick would agree to call Caveman III 'Tom' as well. And that goes for Dick, too. So instead of a consensual fusion, in most cases, the stronger of the two simply makes a quick snack of the other. Hence, the government teaches its people that its noble to fight for the government, and we behold the creation of another purpose in life, abstract at first, but with implications that affect every aspect of our lives and our lives themselves. Such is the extent to which people have taken this purpose to heart that we are yet to see a single gigantic super-caveman towering over the earth and sailing manfully across the universe.
A host of purposes is served singlehandedly by religion. Religion basically lacks savour in that it has no original purpose of itself. But what it lacks in savour, it makes up in aroma and presentation. Man's inherent stupidity makes it impossible for him to grasp the significance of a thing until and unless its written down in boldface on the largest prehistoric club and powerfully administered to the back of his head (perhaps therein lies the reason why man plans his day by looking at stars). So a purpose is like the cola that nobody cares to drink unless a celebrity (religion) endorses it.
These and various other stuff that are common to all the prevalent societies have given them certain similar make-believe goals to make their sorry lives a bit more fulfilling. So, to return to the raising a kid debate, should I teach my kid the exact same stuff that every other decent kid in a decent home is supposed to learn, or should I inspire it to be an original in everything through unconventional nurture and make a lonesome caveman of it? But then again, if I were to make a lonely caveman of it, what are the odds that it would not colonize of itself? Either way I guess we would have the same result. Perhaps it is the instinct of the caveman to cease to be a caveman after all. But when you have a caveman who decides to embrace civilization when all his friends have left their hunting-gathering outfits a long way behind, the others have a tremendous head start over the former, and the former, after selling off the title deeds to his old cave, and finding the new houses beyond his means is doomed to a life of destitution. This is what I dread, and such is what could easily be the outcome of a nurture gone bad.
So tell me what is the best way to proceed? Should I try make of it a unique and beautiful creature, unparalleled but on the verge of extinction, or a highly stable fragment of the insipid homogeneity deluded to the point of no-return? The reason I ask is not because I am eager to start a family (no way!), but because in the end we all need to raise ourselves the best we can.
Yours sincerely
Jude
