RUDIMENTS, pt. 833
(all lies all)
My mother always used to
say odd things. Often they
threw me off. For instance,
she'd say 'Out of salt, out
of money.' I was maybe
10 at the time. It confused
me greatly - and I think
she also did something as
she said it, like throwing a
few grains over her shoulder.
But the main point was, as I
took it, that to be really poor
you had to be out of salt. Or,
you weren't truly poor until
you couldn't afford salt. Only
later, in the seminary, as I gave
study to the Latin language,
did I learn that the world for
salt, in Latin, was 'sal' - to
be pronounced more like sol
that sal - and that it was, as
well, the root of our word
'salary' - because Roman
military legions used to be
paid in salt, which was valued
for its properties of preserving;
foodstuffs and the like. That
was weird to me, as I said, for
the apparently overlapped uses
and meanings, plus my mother's
quirky use of something denoting
money to say something about
having none. I never got that.
-
Maybe it was just one of those
things. Sometimes is seems that
children just get shunted aside
because it's assumed they are
unaware or without any connection
to what's being said around them.
It all just confused me. Another
time, also at around my being 10,
my parents had a big argument,
in the car, during the drive home.
The trip was, maybe 30 minutes,
and most of it was taken up with
the argue-grumble-silence angle
of a feud. My uncle had told a
joke, before which the 'kids'
were told to go in the other
room. It made little sense to
me, and I ended up hearing it
anyway. It was something
about a guy telling his friend
that his wife wasn't much of a
wrestler, and the punchline was,
'But you should see her box.'
They were all laughing and
having a rollicking good time.
but it sure didn't sit well with
my mother. They argued about
it all the way, over the insensitivity
of telling it, the presence of kids,
blah, blah, all the while my father
was taking it as a hit on his brother
(the uncle in question), and getting
all defensive and mad. Growing
up as a kid sure was tough.
-
Now, yes, a person can treasure
these sorts of moments, in memory,
and I do; often not even, at the time,
sure of what was going on. I was
still thinking packaging. Now,
with Amazon and all, boxes are
everywhere. (Can that be
called a joke?).
-
There was always something
about adults, and kids, or versus
kids, that I never figured out.
The whole thing went away after
a while, I guess once I too was
the 'adult.' All they ever seemed
to want you to do, as a kid, was
prepare for taking on a 'role' in
an organized system, later. A
real job, as it were. That's a
dead-end short cut right to
subservience, as I saw it.
Whoever would want that?
(I ended up falling anyway).
All that did was turn public
schools into 'learning' pits of
mush - how to get along with
others, what the accepted forms
of society and beliefs were,
tolerance, and all that social
dance and auto driving. Like
the world needed that crud.
Now you have churches where
you shake hands. You're not
allowed to change anything;
instead they teach you, and
force you, to adjust to it. If
you really need a shot of rigor
and venom, gee whiz, you can
join the military!
-
Karl Marx described this thing
he called the fetishism of
commodities - about someone
'owning' or possessing something.
As Paul Goodman put it, a kid
can understand when Bobby is
holding the shovel and he's told
he cannot use it because it's Bobby's.
But when that same shovel is up
against the wall, not being used,
and he's told he can't use it because
it's Bobby's, a kid doesn't understand
that at all - he can only react to the
authoritative tone of the parent's
voice who is telling him that.
Not the precise idea, just the
tone of conviction. A lot of things
are like that - all of society is.
Authority is figured in. Not that
there's any value there, just the
fetishism of the authority, clinging.
We're never told about that, nor
how to deal with it, nor how to
approach changing it; any of it.
That's the largest fault of the
schooling system we have, right
up now too through all those sham
universities and half-universities
that used to be community colleges,
county colleges, and vocational
schools. Now they're all big and
puffed up about themselves - and
they mostly push 'Authority' jobs.
As if it mattered - like Criminal
Justice, armed guards, mall cops,
data processors, medical coders
and what are euphemistically
always called 'Lab Assistant' or
medical assistance personnel,
etc. Half that junk they can't even
make up proper names for. All
the schools teach are empty
lessons to already hollowed-out
young cadavers. And, of course,
'Authority' itself pushes for that
very same influence, and they
are people who really should
know better: priests mayors,
school figures, and the horde of
bent-elbow tavern philosophers
who end up being everywhere.
When the biggest thing in your
life is that you joined the Marines,
I'd say, 'Houston we really do
have a problem.'
-
I think it kind of bugs a kid to
see his mother enamored of,
or under the thumb of, religion
and veneration; his father under
the same sort of thumb of his
boss. The social relationships
of adults look bizarre to a kid.
The system of organization is
puzzling and mysterious, and
pretty much stays that way.
Wink-eye and calling people
'Aunts' and 'Uncles' who really
aren't; what's that all about to
a kid? The people at the tops of
everything, corporations and all,
are always invisible, so what's a
kid supposed to look up to then
for a 'human'inspiration? TV
heroes? The local political
Gestapo that leeringly offers
them hot dogs and balloons to
remain nice and stay cooperative,
grow passive, and remain very
mold-able even in this moldy
world? It's all lies. All.
'Out of truth? Out of
everything.' (As my Ma
never said),
never said),
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