The Same Old Crazy

“And now the old story has begun to write itself over there," said Carl softly. "Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.”
― Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

  Oddly Willa’s insight reminds me of another saying that is attributed to Albert Einstein. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.”  Yes, but who hasn’t embraced that notion as a valid course of navigation? I mean really? Perhaps not distilled as an ethos from a night of reasoning, but I’m rather familiar with many who possess that type of disposition with interacting with fellow human beings.  Sure, we want people to treat us better; but they don’t.  We want good things to come to us without effort; hardly.  We want to avoid all the unpleasantness in life; but that’s not been my experience, nor that of anyone I’ve ever met.  No, we like to fantasize about our lack; and we’ve plenty of childhood stories to encourage our imaginations in that department too.

  Kind of like, did you ever notice how infants are adored by everyone? Pretty much in general anyway; strangers walking down the street pause and make cuties noises to an infant in a stroller.  Oh and that kid just loves it, you can tell by the grins and gurgles.  I wonder when that adoration stopped?  I mean, the exact day the child grows into being just another kid; so then is ignored or subtly insulted by not asked preferences in a host of decisions made for them.  On an episode of West Wing there appeared a group of kids as members of Future Leaders of America.  One bright boy wanted to know why kids couldn’t vote.  Several adults tried to reason with him but the kid brushed aside those excuses pretty well.  He said the arguments over kids not being able to reason well were the same ones invoked a hundred years earlier to keep the vote from slaves and women.  His contention was that since it was going to be his generation paying the bill for decisions made by the current adults, why was it they couldn’t have a voice in deciding what to spend the public dollars on too?  But that’s just an example of how a human being goes from the center of attention to marginalized without so much as a preamble. Imagine the discussion with a child as in conversation; 

   “Well, here we are my friend, eighteen months old already.  It is here our society has earmarked as the beginning of shaping you into a citizen; and the first lesson we’d like for you to master is to stop pooping your pants.”

Wouldn’t it be a hoot if a child had the necessary command of language to defend itself?

  “Well, thank you for your concern, but you know I’m rather happy the way things are.  I’m not real sport at taking on a task that only seems to accommodate your wishes.  Oh sure, I’ll agree that sitting in my poop is not my idea of a good time, but up until now you’ve been really quite adequate at responding to when I void in pretty quick order.  So for me, I think I’d like to keep the present arrangement as it is, if you don’t mind, or at least for a while longer…say, until I’m about fifteen?”

   Is that preference really all that crazy? Oh and let us not confuse crazy with insane.  The terms are used pretty interchangeably in conversation but any doctor of psychiatry or psychology will correctly inform you that insane is a legal term; used as a defense against punishment for misbehaving. Maladaptive behavior on the other hand….is so much more colorful to be sure.