Assumptions

It has always troubled me that we live in a world that values assumptions so highly. I explore this with AoaN, particularly with how it can gradually shape identity, but I merely scratch at the surface. I’ve seen it all my life in everyone from family to strangers, children to the aged. I see the behavior in myself, and cringe, particularly when these assumptions take on the air of convictions. I especially hate it when someone holds me to them. And I fear the possibility that my identity is being shaped by their influence.

There are indisputable facts fundamental to the experience of living life. Yet, in the scope of what we think about and then discuss at the water cooler, we rarely engage with those facts directly. The majority of what we think about and discuss are extrapolations - "if A, then B, and of course if B, then C" - until we're way down the road discussing M's and N's and believing every word of it. And sometimes even the A's aren't completely true. Take math, for example. I had assumed mathematics to be of rock solid foundation throughout my life, until I was introduced the work of Kurt Godel, whose First Incompleteness Theorem, stating that any adequate axiomatizable theory is incomplete, and exemplified by the sentence "This sentence is not provable" because it is not provable in the theory, pretty much undermines math as I’d known it. In a similar vein, I was recently assured that I could go on believing in the Easter Bunny because it cannot be substantiated that he does not exist. So it is that I have lived my life, from math to an egg-hiding hare, on the foundation of shaky assumptions.

Create Believable Facts

But is that inescapable? Much of the time, I arrive at my assumptions because I don’t have all the information. And so rather than suffer the stress of the unknown, I create believable facts based upon what little I have to work with.

I’ll give you an example.

This week, Keith Richards fell out of a palm tree. All that anyone seems to know is that he was in Figi on holiday during the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang world tour and that he is unharmed. No one knows what really happened. Even resort employees wouldn’t comment. So, alas, we are once again left to the devices of our imaginations.

To properly consider this event, one might typically begin with “What the hell was he doing up in a palm tree?” though given that it was Keith Richards, the question might be better poised with less perplexity: “Huh. I wonder if he was carrying a bottle of Bacardi?” The picture that came to my mind was Mr. Richards shimmying up to the tree’s heights in the vain of a Gilligan, his quest less likely spurred by the mysterious impulse of an artist, and more likely by a desire to make a fresh piña colada. I’m imagining he was almost to the top, just out of reach of a coconut, when he slipped and fell to the sand below, between the deck chairs and discarded Bud bottles (Anheuser-Busch is proud sponsor of the Bigger Bang). I’m picturing people rushing towards him, not knowing what to do. I’m seeing a paunchy, grey-haired (pony-tailed) man, an agent or the type veiling his impulse to cry out “the tour is over” with “Call a doctor!” I see a bunch of people circling around him, and under the pressure of the stress of the unknown, starting to assume.

As Supporting Evidence

I have to say that if I were in Fiji gathered in that circle, and someone were to ask me, I’m certain I would offer up that, in my opinion, Mr. Richards was drunk. I might candy-coat it with the modifier “likely,” but that would only show an unwillingness to take responsibility for my opinion. A sixty-two year old man climbing a palm tree? And, he’s a rock star, I’d submit as supporting evidence. And Tom Waits said, "Well, the first rule is not to try to drink with him." Now I'm imagining nods of agreement making their way around the circle like the wave. Too much of ole John Barleycorn. No question about it. Keith Richards had been drinking. And that is the fact that we would all talk about at the water cooler on Monday.

I think that most of us who read of Mr. Richards' fall from grace would assume that alcohol was involved, and the stories created will be accepted as well-founded. And then it will become a kind of truth in our minds. Naturally, there's no truth to any of it until its substantiated, but we don't need proof. That's what troubles me. We have the ability to believe it, and then base more assumptions upon those assumptions until all of it begins to affect the kind of people we are.

Is it that we are wired in this way to process the slew of information we must face? Or are we aspiring to laziness, not willing to do the work necessary to finding the truth? Worse, is everything that I've written here based upon assumptions that I can't see? Toss me a bone.

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Kaye Trout's Book Reviews

Ms. Trout is an independent reviewer who writes for her own blog and for Midwest Book Review. She also included it her other blog, Kaye Trout's - In Search of Excellence - POD Book List.

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Forgetting

Having lost my dad less than a year ago, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what I expect of life, death and the urge towards immortalization. And, not surprising, much of the conversation on AoaN pushes up against those areas, from nick-naming to mausoleums. Narcissism and our tendencies toward it cannot be avoided if one is reflective on their life. And we have the choice of reflecting lightly or with weight, and some of us, like myself, end up doing both much of the time.

I think the most astute response to this very large question is summed up best by Woody Allen, who once said:

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”

Dreaming

It is dreaming the impossible dream, this idea of not dying. Obviously, I’m not considering here any spiritual element, and I may be naïve in thinking that it can so easily be compartmentalized as such; though I find it far from inappropriate for the purposes of this discussion, because the way I see it, the concept of immortalization has nothing to do with the spiritual. Immortality is implicit to anything spiritual. To discuss it as obtainable or not, is purely a pursuit of the physical world and makes no concessions about such implicitness. The two are apples and oranges.

So in a very simple understanding, we have two things to consider in this pursuit: life and death. Naturally, while I hope that I can fully pursue life, I am not going to pursue death in the same way; yet I still want to pursue it so that the living of my life can be free from the fear of death - if that’s even possible for anyone outside of an ashram. I would also like to register the disclaimer that I have no delusions that this discussion of dying is anything more than an ice crystal on the tip of the ice berg that is the Larsen B Ice Shelf. And even that crystal sounds grandiose to me.

Of Forgetting

When considering immortalization, I can’t help but turn to what its opposite would be, which I have recently filed in the paradigm of my understanding as "forgetting." Years ago I read a lot about Zen and other eastern philosophies and religions, most of which, ironically, I’ve forgotten. Or more accurately, most of which I’ve allowed to amalgamate into a cloud of misunderstandings and assumptions about eastern thought. Nonetheless, I do remember a lot about the need to forget the ego; or better, the self. And by “forget,” I mean the real McCoy. A “forgetting” that is for keeps. To truly forget is to never remember again. Never. Final. I know myself well enough to say here that my self will not let my self forget my self (lest I forget myself). No way in hell. Impossible.

As for my dad, of course, I will never forget him. That, too, is an impossibility. I also know that my niece, Megan, who knew him, will not forget him, but will remember less than I, and should she have children, they will remember less having never known him, until only photographs remain of this unknown person who has meant so much to me; until those photographs disintegrate along with the photographs of me and then the photographs of my niece will also disappear, until the day when my dad will be completely forgotten. And when the sun supernovas, Pablo Picasso, Adolph Hitler, Abraham Lincoln, Beethoven, Martin Luther, Ceasar and Plato, and even Zeus and Mickey Mouse, will all be forgotten, too.

The Blow

But before such solar systemic violence, think of all those people who have lived lives and are completely without record now. Completely and totally forgotten in this moment, not just by me and my people but by anyone that also lives or anyone who has lived. Imagine that! There have been people who walked the planet with as much self-importance as I do, as much urgency, stress, hope and desire, and yet they are now totally forgotten as though they never existed at all. I can only assume they existed, but for all intents, it is as though they were never born. Talk about a blow to the ego!

Well, such a blow is what I’ve been pondering lately. I wish to live a good life, a healthy and loving life; one in which I do not subsidize my vanity, such as through the car I drive or the hair I have cut; one in which I mature and feel pain as well as happiness; one in which I can give to people, in which, admittedly, I am remembered to Harold's Square. Above all, I am hopeful that I might reach a point where I can accept that I will be completely and totally forgotten and not feel lonely about it. If that means that I'll be walking on water at that point, then I'll be contented to do so in private. I want to be okay with being forgotten, because if not, can I be sure that I’m that much different from those who spend millions to be remembered?

And will that enhance the life that I’m living while I am remembered?