Forty Year Observations

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten. Arthur Schopenhauer

I do believe in my last post I promised not to write more about my college reunion, it appears I was mistaken. Offered for your consideration several random observations and bits of a oft told story or two.

First, I would like to say to all those many hundreds of thousands of music lovers out there who tend to say: "I like all kinds of music except rap" or "I love any type of music but none of the twangy country." Well I want to offer for your consideration that when you share a hotel for an entire weekend with a barbershop quartet convention; you will definitely change your mind about your musical exception. Sweet Adeline can put you into a diabetic coma from several rooms away.

One of my friends observed this weekend that graduating students from the sixties seemed to fall into three groups: those who did not have a master plan for their lives; those who did and actually followed that plan and by far the largest group: those who had a plan followed the plan and are now on plan #2, #3 or #19. I, myself, am the poster boy of the first group, having no idea who I was or what I was going to do. I believe I now also qualify as a card carrying member of the third group as well, being that I am now on my twenty-somethingth career. These may be more universal traits of all youthful graduates but methinks the late 60s and early 70s produced a lot more young people who kept looking for their path long after commencement.

I've got several more interesting "career twist" stories from the weekend but I think they belong in a short story not here. What I am fascinated by are the people who every five years really enjoy a cocktail party, a box lunch, a class photo and a bad hotel rubber chicken dinner with old friends versus those classmates who never come back to campus and who actually have told me via phone and facebook that the entire idea of talking with a friend not seen in 40 years is downright frightening.

What is nostalgia and how much of it remains logged in fantasy and the midsts of memory, not to be ripped into the light of reality by seeing friends now wrinkled and worn with the living of the intervening forty years. Our gang had a great time and anticipate our 45th reunion just around the corner. We expect the Boston and Washington contingents to show up in '14.

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photo credit: archives

Kalamazoo, Kazoo, Kazoo

Although it shocks my avid followers when I say it.... I am heading to my 40th college reunion this weekend. It appears it will be a damp and chilly weekend so I think the interior activities will draw us more than the football game. A small if incomplete complement of old friends will be showing up. We have mostly managed to make the rendezvous every five years but will miss the few who have other commitments this weekend (the Band took one and Obama got the other).

I am sure reading about someone else's reunion is almost as tedious as attending one with a spouse or partner. You know no one, you miss all the inside jokes and you realize your favorite bed buddy was young and immature sometime in the distant past. So this will be the first and last mention of the happenings from this weekend.

For those who are alums but won't be making the trek to Kalamazoo, here is a musical reminder of those long ago days. Turn up the volume.

Turtles All The Way Down

"Turtles all the way down" refers to an infinite regression belief about cosmology, the nature of the universe. An infinite regression not so simply implies that each proposition depends on a prior proposition and since each relies on the previous there is no end to the propositioning and therefore no real, baseline knowing. This can lead to circular arguments when one of the propositions is repeated and therefore ultimately depends on itself for its veracity. Most such rhetoric comes from the cosmological argument, which is in itself the search for the First Cause or the answer to the questions: Why are we here? or What is the meaning of life? or simply WTF! First Cause is also the argument for (or against) the existence of God or god or even gods.

But back to the turtles. Rumor has it or at least Stephen Hawking tells it this way:

A well-known scientist (some say Bertrand Russell) gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

This fable more than likely arises from a Hindu cosmology that has the earth resting on an elephant's back and the elephant standing on a turtle. When a wise Hindu scholar was asked what the turtle rested upon, he replied: "Why don't we change the subject."

There are as many explanations of the cosmos as there are or were cultures. Creation myths are as plentiful as the stars in the sky. What I find most interesting is that when you find a true believer in any one explanation and you ask them about any other view, they will tell you it is a myth. But of course, those who adhere to anyone of those other "myths" would label their true belief just the same.

Perhaps rather than turtles, it is really myths all the way down.

As for me, I always carry cat treats and a container of turtle food.
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