I know that I am not the only one who wakes up in the wee hours with something on my mind. I suspect however that I may be the only biped who wakes up thinking about paradox. This morning, it was 12:30 when I craned my neck to look over the sleeping body of my darling wife to blearily peek at the alarm clock. The paradox that roused me to semi-consciousness was an echo from childhood. It went something like this: “Young man, if you don’t stop that crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.”
First, I wondered how this phrase, this statement made it’s way into my memory. I had this vague memory of being in a store of some kind. I was small enough that I was still being led everywhere by an adult hand. In my mind’s eye it was like a scene watched from above. I could see my little self, hand being held, listening to the odd command: “Young man, if you don’t stop that crying I’m going to give you something to cry about”. Truly weird.
In my adult mind, after waking up and after sufficient half/caf in my blood, I pondered whether I had ever used this bizarre strategy with my own children. I came to the conclusion that while I had certainly committed atrocities of my own during the rearing of my offspring; this was one that I felt confident that I have never used. Somehow I had avoided the dreaded “sins of the father” bullet this one time.
Next I pondered the paradox itself. How I wished to be returned to the exact moment in time when I first encountered the great paradox. Oh how I longed to enter the wayback machine with Sherman and go back to the very moment, but with my adult vocabulary and faculties, my fifty year old sensibilities and facility. I can almost see myself looking up into the parent’s eyes and saying: “Wait, let’s think about this with some ration of common sense. If indeed I had nothing currently compelling me to exhibit this emotion, I would not be crying. So, while I appreciate your offer to compound my misery so that my crying might be even more heartfelt; perhaps the better solution would be for us to discuss the true nature of my disturbance to see if we can find the root source of my anguish.”
Oh, that would have been sweet. I can even imagine my parent’s face. Stunned. Absolute logic from a three year old. And while it probably never happens, I hold out hope that in this modern world, some day some parent will dredge out this tired old paradox with the three year old that has the exact vocabulary to challenge them. When that happens, the world will change – instantaneously. The garden will be restored.
Of course I understand it will occur on the same day that the AIG executives return the bonuses. But I can dream.