A Wednesday : My impatience, Zoroastrianism, A Winter’s Tale, Barba tenus sapientes, No True Scotsman.

Conversations at 5.45 am by loud whisperers

Look, there’s snow! Shall we go outside now? Oh, don’t wipe any more boogies on Daddy’s pillow, okay? We don’t wipe boogies on walls. Or Mama’s blanket. Or Daddy’s pillow.

Happenings throughout the day I wish didn’t happen

I broke a wiper blade on Becca’s car. Crusted ice and snow, a pox on you!

A giant bowl of cereal underwent a Humpty-Dumpty experience en route from kitchen to breakfast table, followed by a 2-year old’s “Uh-oh, sorry!”

So we gained the opportunity to hone our cleaning up spills skills!

Tiny ongoing occurrences

Three boys watching a cat prowl through the snow.

What I could have done better

Not get irritated and impatient at people not looking at chores from a wholistic perspective. In other words, ‘don’t leave until everything is done!’ Or rather…how could I have been more patient and constructive in helping better cement this idea? I believe strongly in Initiative and the importance of taking an active role in the groups or communities you’re a part of, as opposed to a check sheet of “…I did this thing and that thing so I’m done, and they need to finish that part cause it’s not my job.”

I need to do better at not getting discouraged, again and again, about the little things and little crises and little happenings that pop up, mole hill-style, that aren’t steps towards anything tangible, not toward an endgame, not toward a goal or vision, but things that simply have to be done. Like changing broken wiper blades.

Religion - Moses, Zoroastrianism

Bible

More Moses. I rarely get tired of this flawed hero’s journey.

Five things about Zoroastrianism

There are around 100,000 to 200,000 Zoroastrians in the world today. Most are in India (adherents in India are known as Parsees, or descendants of Persian (Iranian) Zoroastrian immigrants.
Zoroastrianism, the world’s oldest monotheistic faith, originated in Persia (now Iran). It was a significant influence on early Judaism and later the other Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam) not only with its belief in a monotheistic god, but in ideas of free will, heaven and hell, the ongoing universal struggle between Good and Evil, supernatural beings (i.e. angels), and post-death judgment.
Its founder was Zarathustra (often called Zoroaster outside of Iran) sometime in the 6th century BC. In addition to positing the idea of a single god, rather than the polytheism of all other religions of the time, there was a heavy focus on dualism: the Earth as cosmic battlefield in which Good was battling Evil, and in the end, the former would triumph.
What are “wise men” called in Zoroastrianism? Magi? Sound familiar? Yes, when we hear the classic Nativity story of The Three Wise Men tromping across lands to bring presents to the little babe, we are in fact hearing about three magus - the Magi plural - who were priests/sages/magicians in their native land of Persia. This brought a whole new level of appreciation and awareness, for me, to this story. Magi were the wise men of Persia, the priestly representatives of their religion.
The religion became a persecuted minority sometime in the 600s AD, when Muslims eradicated many. This led a number to emigrate to India for asylum. Although their numbers are small today (relative to other world religions), the influence of early Zoroastrian beliefs on the development of other religions continues to be felt today, especially in the cosmogonic, cosmological sense of a long and ongoing war between Light and Darkness.

Art

We discussed the early 1900s Dutch art movement de Stilj and its emphasis on clean geometric forms, dual color palettes, and connection to later movements and styles including Bauhaus. We might have listened the the White Stripes also.

Books and Readings

With Olders

1. Harrison Bergeron. Kurt Vonnegut’s classic 1961 short story about a future society in which the government mandates that everyone must be equal…no matter what. Nobody wrote chilling, thoughtful commentary with such satiric wit and narrative interest as Vonnegut. Terrifying and provoking.

2. A Winter’s Tale. Not often included in Shakespeare’s finest, but I’ve always enjoyed this one, and our 11-yo remarked on this being his favorite. Didn’t see that coming. He loved the plot reversals and twists. I appreciate the genre-hopping, as we move from tragedy in Act 1 to more of a rom-com in Act 2…

I also had them read this solo for the first time. Usually I read aloud, but I decided to try having them read separately and individually first this time, and then we’d discuss after. Worked well, though I miss the ongoing ability to stop and discuss along the way.

With Youngers

Yes, I did read two of these while we huddled under a blanket. Guess which ones!

The Storm Book by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham (1989)
The Storm by Akiko Miyakoshi (2016)

Shadow - translated and illustrated by Marcia Brown (1982)

Games

He pulled out a bunch of my old marbles and invented a game; a game whose rules are still vague to me, yet clear to his disciple, the 5-year old. I held off on Math while they argued and battled, and I hope it is worth it.

Painting

I had a childhood filled with many books, many people, and many rich experiences and opportunities to explore and discover. I credit my parents greatly for their own journey of discovery as they raised children. Like Moses, they were and are heroes, which means they are people filled with wisdom, courage, integrity, and the humbleness to acknowledge their flaws and grow from them.

One thing I’ve taken from my dad is the work he would go to to create an experience for his family. It could be infuriating and maddening sometimes, when we wanted to simply go to the beach, for example, on a summer holiday, and he would spend what seemed hours loading up his truck with firewood, tablewear, food, coolers, chairs, blankets, and enough miscellaneous supplies for a family of nine to bunker up for a month or two. This for a half-day trip to the beach - which was a mere 20-ish minutes away.

But when we got there? It was worth it. We all benefited from the work he put in to get everything together. There are many examples, and honestly, one of the counter-reactions I’ve had is that sometimes I just want to be able to cram our family of six into a vehicle and take off on five minutes notice. And sometimes we do.

Yet I also have come to deeply appreciate how invested his time in making it possible for others - usually kids - to have a magical time and make memories.

One of my own versions of that is with Painting.
With one child, it was super fun.
With two children, it was a little more challenging, but fun.
With three children, it started to feel more like work. But still a payoff.
And with four children and the accompanying supplies and space necessary to quickly, easily paint indoors during the winter?

A little more complicated.

But they love it. Looove it. As many younger children do, and as many older children and adults still should, because how magical and wonderful is it to push and swipe colors around on a canvas (or whatever stack of thick paper is closest)?

There’s prep and there’s cleanup. But I never, ever regret it once they’re going, dipping and ferociously concentrating on swooping and carefully moving their brushes around.

Even when, in some cases, the final result is a page filled with a watery swirl of gray-ish black from a rainbow getting mashed together with all available colors.

Even then.

The warmth and coziness of frigidity in a forest

I’m not cold, he announced, pulling off his jacket as he watched his brother, senior by three years, sled down in a light - and very dirty - t-shirt.

It’s, umm, winter. I said. And we’re sledding. In the snow.

Yeah, he said, hauling his sled up the hill again. I like not wearing a jacket. It feels warm and cozy.

So we kept sledding.

Two-year old storytelling

Once upon a time, he said, his two-year old voice graveling away as he hunted away for the right syllables and words, staccato, start-stop delivery as he told his tale with verve…

…once upon a time, it was snowy. I went on a sled. And crashed into the berry bushes. I got hurt…really bad. The end.

The end? I asked. Are you still hurt?

Yeah. he said. It hurts really bad. I love sledding.

Latin

Pono / Positum - “to lay, to place, to put, to set”

Examples:

Deposit - to put something in
Expose - put out for people to see
Postpone - to change a planned (set) event to a different (later) time
Preposition - word put before a noun to show time, place, etc.

Review

I’m not listing them here, but we reviewed the first portion of a list of Latin phrases I felt we should know. Every week we focus on specific prefixes and roots (i.e. Pono), as well as break down key phrases. There are so many ideas and responses to entire situation that are so beautiful and meaningful in Latin. For example:

Barba tenus sapientes - “wise as long as his beard”

You know how when you’re a kid, and you’re supposed to believe what (older) people say because they seem wise? They look old and wise and like they know what they’re talking about? Well, all respect for deference and humility when called for, but here’s a news flash: I suspect I’m not the only one who grows weary of assuming somebody knows what they’re talking about simply because they seem like they’ve been at it a while. The appearance of wisdom is not the same as wisdom. And the presence of long bearded men in ancient times did not mean they were smart or had good ideas in many situations. Sometimes a long beard doesn’t signify wisdom. It just means you have a long beard and that maybe you look wise. Sometimes a bunch of degrees don’t signify wisdom or intelligence. It might just mean you have a mountain of student loan debt and need to sound wise in order to get a lucrative consulting gig. Et cetera. The perception of experience and wisdom is not the same thing as the thing itself. Look how many words I just took to say that? A whole big long paragraph! How much simpler is it to just condense everything above into a single idea:

Barba tenus sapientes.

Critical Thinking / Rhetoric & Reason - No True Scotsman fallacy

Oh, this is such a great one. To begin with, it has a great title. “No True Scotsman.” Second, the soundness of its internal logic is unassailable. And it’s simple. So simple. You really have to add only one word to use this. The word “true.” Or you could use “real.” The fallacy comes from comparing the actions or words of an individual to that of all in that group.

It goes something like this.

Person A: All Christians support Donald Trump for President.
Person B: I’m a Christian and I don’t support that.
Person A: You’re not a true Christian.

See how it works? It’s amazing and breathtaking and versatile in its ability to take something like a prophecy or prediction or inconsistent action and explain it away by stating that “…they’re not a true Republican/patriot/Scotsman/fill-in-the-blank.”

Masterful.

Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, and author states that phrases such as "no true Christian ever kills, no true Communist state is repressive and no true Trump supporter endorses violence" are explained by the No True Scotsman fallacy.