A Parable
I’ll let ck’s introduction stand as is, even if a person would have to have tasted a few bottles of Lafite before she could ever begin to be called a connoisseur. I will, however, present an autobiographical parable which will give you a sense of my cognitive posture, critique of contemporary thought, and my love for narrative.
Oh, and here is a side question to reflect on: May I justly consider a story from my life as typological (and is it a matter of “justice”)?
The Impossible Question Answered
There was once a young boy who had to choose between his parents. The boy and his sister were led to the judges chambers and asked, ‘If you had a choice, who would like to live with, your mother or your father?’
The boy thought to himself, ‘this is an impossible question. A child is supposed to live with both his parents,’ and, while he was mulling this over, his younger sister blurted out, ‘my mother.’
The boy was caught in a quandry. He, after his sister answered, felt a desire to live with his father (for a boy, after all, loves his father in way that he cannot ever love his mother). Yet he did not want to choose between his parents for he loved them both very much. Besides, he was still a naive child who figured this answer was final. This terrified him.
But it was too late: the question had been posed–whether or not he choose to answer the judge–and, in turn, had become a legitimate, academic question (these are the most terrible of ALL questions) in his mind. The boy, thinking it was better that he and his sister live together, made his decision, against his own judgment, and declared that he would prefer to live his mother. And so they did.
‘But teacher,’ said the most beloved disciple, ‘I am unsure whether the boy’s decision was the right choice.’
The teacher said, ‘Dear brother, the boy’s choice is irrelevant. Violence was done when he first began to look at his parents as options.’
December 15th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
I will write more on this in the following days.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Arrgh! I hate crap like this. Normally this blog is thought-provoking, but this post represents the worst of what I see in this postmodern landscape. My advice is get a life, buddy. You seem the type that over time heaps analysis on a childhood moment, investing it with so much significance that in the end you’ve elevated yourself to Abraham on Moriah. I see so many people finding something (or looking desperately) that they can transform into a violence narrative, portraying themselves as this hapless victim who rails at the injustice of the world, shut out of society by being too honest or hurt or intelligent or whatever. It’s dangerous stuff. When I say get a life, I mean it. Don’t focus on the past in order to find some overarching explanation for your life and who you are–create those things right now. Get into action!!! Sure, maybe there’s no Big Mystical Explanation for things, maybe you had some shitty things happen to you when you were young. That’s the case for a huge number of people, buddy–most of it a hell of a lot worse than your parents divorcing. The point is that you have an enormous capacity for action, for making your life what YOU want it to be. Don’t excuse your apathy with some fairy tale about all this pain you’ve experienced. Get over yourself, get out there, and take action to get over it.
–Jack
December 16th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Whoa! Jack, calm down. Everyone deals with these issues in their own way. You don’t know Andrew any more then I do, so to peg him as one of “those people” is jumping the gun.
In regards to Andrew’s post, I have to ask who was it that was wrong? The judge? The parents? The sister? Let’s be honest - a child shouldn’t have to choose between his parents, but at the question must be answered regardless.
Life is made up of “Impossible Questions.” While we all rush to judge how others answer their impossible questions, we like to hold ourselves as being blameless for the answers that we provide. In the end, this shows that there are no moral absolutes, even if we like to pretend otherwise.
Thank you for the parable.
Namaste.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:34 am
An interesting reaction, but I think, perhaps, you don’t see where I am going yet. Not entirely.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:06 am
[...] what my buddy, Jack, finds troublesome about the parable–and why I posted it here in the first place–is actually quite right, [...]