Untied

“Hello?”

“I’m so glad you picked up, did you get my messages? You’ve been so difficult to reach lately.”

“So?”

“So, we were wondering if we’ll be seeing you guys at Thanksgiving this year?”

“Not after you disinvited us last year.”

“Disinvited?”

“You disinvited us at the last minute.”

“Disinvited? Oh, I remember, your kids were sick, really sick, right? Throwing up and stuff.”

“It was Thanksgiving. We had nowhere else to go. No one to watch the kids. So we stayed home with them and stared at the wall.”

“But your kids were really sick, I mean, didn’t they need the rest? And I’m surprised you even thought of bringing them and their germs into a house crammed full of kids, infecting them and all that. We had to think of the other kids, and the adults. No one gives thanks for the flu, you know.”

“Last year you really screwed it up for us. We had nowhere to go after you disinvited us at the last minute. You ruined our holiday. We’re not going to let that happen again. We’re not relying on you again. This year, we’re doing it at our house.”

“Your house?”

“Yes. We’ve invited everyone to our house.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone on our side. I suppose you can come too, if you want.”

“Thanks, but we still plan to have dinner here.”

“Fine, suit yourself. Get a smaller turkey.”

Click.

I imagine a family is like a solar system, with elders in the middle and aunts and uncles and cousins and children and grandchildren orbiting around, some close in like Mars, others far out like Neptune, but all rotating together in some kind of cosmic harmony. Examined up close, an individual appears independent, but when you step back you detect the invisible forces that bind the individual to the family core, keeping the individual from spinning away into space.

Then there’s my family, the one I grew up with.

It would be convenient metaphorically to say a supernova blew us apart, but that’s not how it happened. It wasn't a bang, just a whimper. Over the decades a succession of small and smaller events chipped away at our core until, imperceptibly, whatever gravitational pull once held us together stretched and frayed and eventually snapped, sending us spinning away so far into space we barely see each other anymore. Today our paths no longer intersect. In our center, there’s no there there, just a fading memory and a lingering but rapidly receding sense of familial duty that, these days, is barely strong enough to bring us together for major surgeries and funerals.

And though we still mourn together when a family member dies, I don’t get the sense any of us mourn the death of our family. Most of us have married, and with marriage we’ve joined new families, and any family we marry into is going to be better than the family we’ve already buried, so we’ve naturally gravitated towards our new families, happily shifting our orbits to conform to theirs.

That’s not to say everything is perfect, of course, for a lifetime of experience with a disintegrating family doesn’t really prepare one for life with an integrating family. I can’t speak for the other members of my old family, for I rarely speak to them, but I can say for my own part that I often feel like an alien with my new family, standing apart and examining them during family functions, trying the learn their ways so I can pass myself off as one of them.

I’ll probably never succeed at shedding my outsider status. It’s too deeply ingrained. And let's face it, if my wife ever dumps me, my new family will surely dump me too. But none of this really matters, for my children orbit around a strong family core and, in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?

A Little Knowledge

Some people know a lot about a little, others know a little about a lot. He knows a little about a little.

He's ignorant, but he isn't stupid. He knows he doesn't know. He just doesn't want to know what he doesn't know. He runs from knowledge.

Try to tell him something he doesn't know, he recoils. Persist, and he dismisses you. Or he turns his back and walks away. He really doesn't want to know.

What does he know? I don't know, but he speaks in slogans. He's a walking motivational poster. They downloaded the company line into his larynx. At first I thought he was the ultimate company man, a total tool. I'd never heard anyone actually talk in press release before.

Then as I got to know him, I began to think otherwise. He gets by okay, but he doesn't excel. He never stretches. Stays well within his comfort zone. A surface skimmer, not one to dive in. He thinks so far inside the box, it's not even thinking. He doesn't even bother to restate the obvious. He just states it.

I changed my view, started thinking of him as Mr. CYA. After all, you're not responsible for what you don't know, and he's careful not to know anything, so he's never responsible.

Today I'm not so sure about the Mr. CYA part. I sense something more inert inside his head. It isn't an act. He isn't consciously sticking his head in the sand. No, he really believes in what he says. His slogans? They're not slogans to him. Emblazon them on a tote bag or print them on a lapel pin, and in his mind you sanctify them. They become the tried-and-true secrets of a successful life.

Life is simple, at least for him. You people with your inconvenient facts and your counter-facts, your multi-level analyses, your shades of grey, your on-the-one-hands and on-the-other-hands, you just complicate things. Needlessly. Better minds have already thought this through. So stick with the program and everything will be just fine. Don't worry, be happy.

And he is happy. He's safe and secure in the warm embrace of his certainty. He sits in bliss watching the rest of us wig out. He's straight and true while we zig-zag back and forth. With all our questioning, all our doubting, all our worrying, is it any wonder he's so dismissive, so condescending?

He probably thinks we're the ones who run from knowledge.

He's wrong, of course. We can't all outsource our brains. Someone has to think, to question, to doubt, to worry. It's just not him. Not his department. He's carved that out of his job description. I'll bet he's carved it out of his life description.

He fascinates me, so I study him. A life built on delusions and denials, that's quite a trick to pull off. I don't know how he does it, but he certainly makes it look easy.

Some days I even envy him. I wish I could just turn off my mind, relax and float downstream. But I can't. I see too much. I drill too deep. I throw myself into what I do. And I care too much. My curse is to always worry. I'm never secure enough to rest. It isn't easy, this life I lead, and I certainly make it look hard.

No pain, no gain. That's sounds like something he'd say, except he gains without the pain. Meanwhile I'm losing. My pain ages me prematurely. My hair falls out, my stomach-lining burns, my blood pressure rises, my arteries harden. I don't sleep. And my mood grows darker while he comfortably strolls on the sunny side, always on the sunny side of life.

The unexamined life is not worth living. Ignorance is bliss. Which is it? At this point, I'd rather not know.