One of the questions that has most been with me the past two years is this: If I had a son or daughter, would I have anything to really teach them? Would I have gathered from my years on earth some kind of life-wisdom to pass on to them? Or would all my knowledge be merely technical information – this is how you tie a tie, this is how you balance a checkbook, these are the prayers you say at Mass – information that anyone else could provide, or they could find out on their own?
I think this anxiety is not far from many parents’ minds. I think it is behind Susan Wise Bauer’s musings here on incompetent or absent (physically or spiritually) parents. I’m not sure she quite sees it the way I am describing it herself – her focus is on merely being present for her children in a deeper way – but I think this is the ultimate anxiety, knowing that we must have some deeper obligation to our children than merely “keeping them fed and safe” or training them for success; but having received so little wisdom from others, what confidence can we have in our own, or in finding a form for passing it on?
Ms. Bauer is an intriguing writer, of the “let’s return to farming and teaching, religion and Classics” type; she has been working on a history of the world for home-school use.
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I think people doubt the jibber jabber that is their thought process a lot less than you think.
Hehe… I have a strong suspicion that most people’s inner experience is actually quite similar, though communication of that truth is hampered by 1) lack of self-examination 2) weakness of memory 3) lack of expertise with words. But my findings confirm this opinion… even in the seemingly dullest people, if you get them to open up, everything is recognizable akin. And admittedly, if I didn’t believe something similar to this – if I were forced to believe I was utterly alien from everyone else – I’d probably die of depression. But hell, even the chipmunks, to me, seem to lead similar lives to us. And the above thoughts are certainly not that alien from someone like Susan Wise Bauer, on whom we have nothing, I’ll bet.
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Замечательно, это очень ценная штука…
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