Relationships

I recently let slip that my view of the pro-freedom community as “family” had started to change. I hesitate to say more at this point, because my thinking is still in process, but other conversations here have started to weave a tapestry into which I feel somewhat comfortable with thinking out loud. And I’ve no doubt that sharing my half-spun, somewhat woolly threads will allow further exploration, to all our benefit.

Before we slip into the garden glade, I want to make it clear that this line of thinking was not my original idea: a cherished friend dropped the idea-seed into my mind, and it’s been working in there ever since. It’s my understanding that my friend prefers a measure of anonymity, so I shan’t be pointing to direct sources of this individual’s ... besides, the seed came in private conversation. Anyway, my mystery friend deserves all the credit for the idea, and I will take all the responsibility for my usual bumbling, rambling presentation of it.

Relationships are ever-shifting things, and although I think most adults know this it can still come as a surprise when a relationship that was considered steady comes undone.

Part of my recent bout of quietness here stems from various relationships being in a fairly obvious state of flux. Some of those changes are obviously to the good; others aren’t, and a couple others are being deliberately tended, to see how they might grow. An online acquaintance from some years ago has recently popped back into my life, and in so doing has got my brain buzzing with ideas and contexts I’ve not considered much, if at all. A major theme in our explorations is relationships. I expect to say much more on that here as the conversations spool out, but for now I’ll toss out this little thought–grenade: he is, without deliberately trying to (so it appears to me), slowly persuading me that the family metaphor is not the best one for the pro-freedom community. Sorry, Kirsten.

Over the years I've been asked thousands of times how to decide what to give elderly people for birthdays, holidays and especially Christmas. As a nurse, I had close contact with thousands of elderly people, and most of them received lots of junk they could not use and which was basically meaningless. They don't need more "things." They have all the bath soap, dusting powder, perfume, naughty nighties and socks they would need for another 50 years. This is especially true of the gentlemen.

So, here are some suggestions:

“A person’s a person, no matter how small,” wrote Dr. Seuss many years ago. And while there is truth in that observation, it is just as observably true that in aggregate, children are fairly different from adults in aggregate. (And of course, taken individually, each child is unique, just as adults are.) The important question, it seems to me, is “How are children different?”, because I think how one treats a child may stem from how one answers that question.

It seems to me that a general answer probably leans toward one of two positions:
1). Children are quantitatively different from adults—meaning they lack a great deal of skill and experience at living, and so, as they mature and have more experiences (and are allowed/encouraged to learn from them) they gradually become more like adults; and
2). Children are qualitatively different from adults. Neurological–developmental research has revealed that the human brain undergoes at least two significant growth spurts—one just after birth, and the second during adolescence. Perhaps even more importantly, the second growth spurt is not merely an adding of neurons and neural connections; it is a refinement of pathways, culling those that have not been used and strengthening ones used frequently. So, in a very real sense, a child’s brain is fairly different from a grownup’s brain.

Which is the more important aspect in responding to a child, in helping it grow and mature? I don’t know that they can be teased apart, only in part because of the confounding variable of time that is required by both processes; experience is also a crucial element in neural development, as many, many animal and human studies have demonstrated. But it seems to me that, if more individuals knew of that second growth spurt, and grokked what it implies (I’m not sure I fully do, for the record), the way children are approached and depicted in our culture would change dramatically.

Or maybe my brain is just rambling incoherently, trying to avoid the impending immersion into the chaotic world of finance and economics.

It was Billy Joel who wrote a song some time ago about love relationships ultimately being “a matter of trust”. While that’s true, the larger point—and the reason the song has been repeating in my mind for a few hours now—is that all relationships are built upon trust. Every contract, formal or informal, every market transaction, happens because there is some degree of trust between the participants. It appears to me that trust is such a deep, implicit part of that most of us probably don’t recognize its role, unless something happens to disturb it and therefore bring it to our attention.

Readers who have perused my recent rantings on the current economic landscape may find all that at odds with the quote that currently appears atop the sidebar: “Life should be more than just the passage of time; it should be the enjoyment of time as it passes.” While it is true that I am not enjoying the current crises, nor the prospect of what’s still to come, I do mean to do my best to turn the large shipment of lemons coming our way into lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon freeze, lemon chicken ... you get my point.