Friday: French and Frangibility

We know our parents. Many of us knew our grandparents, but only as elderly people. Our great-grandparents are folk we have only heard of, and if lucky, we may retain a knick-knack or piece of furniture once theirs. Further back in time, all details are lost forever and all that remains of them is their name and a weathered stone in a distant field. This disconnect will happen forwards in time as well: our linear selves occupy but a molehill of time in the meadows of forever.

Throughout history, the peoples of bygone ages have been reviled for their eccentric ways: theists and polytheists, flat-earthers and earth-centrists, phrenologists and communists. But all were correct in their time. Thus future generations will look back on us with pity for our ignorance: Hellfire clubbing or seal clubbing, the swingers club or the football club, all may be despised by our brothers from another mother in another age.

One generation’s quiet socializing in a tea shop is another’s drunken buffoonery in an opium den: one’s state-sponsored cruelty or stubborn resistance to change in the face of overwhelming evidence is another’s righteous political correctness or establishment status quo.

We view with horror the primitive ways of our ancestors. And yet these are the people that made us and the world in which we live. Their sacrifices and achievements shape our lives, yet they would be as strangers to us for we are separated by cultural shifts, awakenings, schism and revolution.

And soon enough, if it has not come to pass already, our own children will ridicule us for our archaic beliefs and customs, and the minute we open our mouths in indignant response, we have self-fulfilled their prophecy, and confirmed ourselves to be the curmudgeonly sticks-in-the-mud they know us to be.

Our descendants these five or six generations hence shall know naught of our lives, who amongst us knows the daily deeds of their mother’s father’s mother’s father’s mother’s father?

So what can be done? Shall we give up; knowing that nothing we do shall be remembered by our distant seed? No, for even that conscious choice will go unnoticed. We can only stand by our convictions on those things for which we have solid evidence, and remain open-minded on aspects which remain articles of faith, lest we too become the enemy. Plus, keeping a diary might help.

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Happy Friday to all! Poor old Erin got a nosebleed at school today, we were Jumping Off Benches and unbeknownst to her, somebody walked in front of her so she nose-butted them on the way down.
I scraped a bit more wallpaper off because I too wish to move house. In swimming, normally we get to jump in repeatedly doing the hands/knees/toes thing, I reckon it's just to get us used to being submerged in a fun way. Today we gangnam styled in. A buncha seven year-olds queueing up to ride invisible horses into a swimming pool looks pretty strange, but reserve your sympathy for the 3 daddies of the 3 gangnam stylers as they tried to dry and dress 3 dancing singing maniacs who all know the words and actions. Ku-ro-sa-wa aaaair! Sexy lady.....