ASBC: Karl Maeser and Small Children



What is the connection here? First, a short story from Messer Polo.

 

Polo travels to a place with an interesting law: "If application for payment shall have been repeatedly made by a creditor, and the debtor puts him off from time to time with false promises, the forfeiter may attach his person by drawing a circle around him, from whence he dare not depart until he has satisfied his creditor, either by payment, or by giving adequate security. Should he attempt to make his escape, he renders himself liable to the punishment of death, as a violater of the rules of justice." (291)

Marco Polo is apparently an eyewitness to a foreign merchant, to whom the king of the country owes money, drawing a circle around the king and his horse while they are out riding one day. (Presumably the horse was standing still for a moment.) The king saw that he had been circled and refused to move until the debt was paid; all the bystanders marvelled at how great the king was for submitting to his own laws of justice.

Back to the title. Remember that Karl Maeser quote about the chalk circle? Not so original after all. Also, I have been having a surprisingly great yet busy time this week watching various small relatives. But I was sure wishing I could draw a circle around my nephew and leave him there after he jumped back into the bathtub with his pajamas on. (You owe me the five minutes of my life I spent wrestling you into those pajamas!)

ASBC: Marco Polo Confusion

The Anti-Social Book Club meets!

First off, I have issues with introductions to biographies--if the book can be summed up in 10 pages why read the book? Anyway, Komroff's introduction started getting long and pointless, and there was a prologue after that, so I skipped the last part of the introduction and the entire prologue. It's a big book, you know. I felt like I was wasting time. I went back at the end and read it just so I could say I read the whole thing, and the prologue was actually good. Point: Do we really need an introduction and a prologue?

So. Marco Polo. I didn't get the sense that Polo was writing for a desperate housewife who likes to read interesting travelogues, but instead for a businessman who likes to read facutal descriptions of business opportunities. I will expound. Polo's descriptions can be divided into two main categories. Business: because Marco Polo talks a lot about the local spices, wares, products, etc., that would be good for resale, and man: because Polo also likes to delve into the sexual habits of the local idolaters. In a very factual way, of course. Maybe it loses something in the translation, or maybe Komroff was right, that Polo doesn't really have a sense of humor or a poetic mind.  Anyway, a simultaneously boring and interesting read, due to the whole businessman thing.

Feel free to comment. More thoughts to come.

Anti-Social Book Club Road Trip

Did you think we were really leaving the comfort and security of our houses? No, instead we are going to be reading about a road trip! A reeeealllly loooooong road trip. I've been wanting to read Marco Polo for a while. Then I saw him tucked amidst the other travel guides to different countries, which I thought was kind of an odd classification--I would have put him in biographies. So that piqued my interest, but when I opened up the book to find half a stick of wrapped gum inside the deal was sealed. Even if I don't enjoy the book, the pages will smell nice while I read it and I will have excellent breath when I'm done.

I think a translation of Marco Polo will be at most libraries. There are some fictionalized versions of Polo's journey out there, so watch out for those. I think there's also a two-volume translation available by Henry Yule. That sounds a bit too long for a summer read: I would stay away from that. Anyway, my book flap says that "The Travels of Marco Polo" was "chosen as one of the ten best adventure books of all time by National Geographic Adventure." Sounds exciting!

ASBC: Falling In Love

In Chapter 3, Ariely shares the oragami study. Short recap version: the people who made oragami artwork bid more for their creations than other people bid for them. Significantly more. We value the things we make, to the point where "we mistakenly think that others love our work as much as we do." This is why people will talk about their kids forever and I try not to, because really, does anyone care about my kids as much as I do? Of course not. I worry sometimes about sounding apathetic towards my decision to stay at home to raise my kids. But really, I enjoy saying that no one understands my children better than I do. Not even my husband.

"The effort involved in the building process is a crucial ingredient in the process of falling in love with our creations." I'd say those 9 months + childbirth were a lot of effort. I think that small babies are a lot of effort. I understand why you would look forward to returning back to work outside the home when you have on your hands a baby that sleeps, eats, poops, looks cute for a little while, then goes to sleep again. But I think the effort and service moms give during this time is as important as pregnancy in building a bond with their baby. I imagine it's true during all the formative years when you are creating a decent human being. The more effort you expend in "building" your little creations the more you fall in love with them.

I hope this makes sense because I don't have too much time...the hard drive went out on our computer so blogging may be sporadic. I hope you liked the book...I'll give you the next one in a little while.

ASBC: I Should Have Gone On Vacation

"People will suffer less when they do not disrupt annoying experiences, and enjoy pleasurable experiences more when they break them up. Any interruption, they guessed, would keep people from adapting to the experience, which means that it would be bad to break up annoying experiences but useful to interrupt pleasurable ones (Ariely 177-78)."

This means we should have gone on a cool vacation instead of buying a house. I've adapted to my house now; I guess I no longer get as much pleasure out of it as I did when we first bought it. Anyway, when we first moved in, I wanted to paint everything and buy furniture and artwork to fill up my beautiful house, Extreme Makeover style. But if I read correctly, I will get more joy out of slowly redecorating my house, room by room, year by year, because I'll be breaking up the pleasure and enjoyment of buying new things. That's good, because I can't afford Extreme Makeover.

One more personal insight. My intuition tells me to wait a while before we have another baby, otherwise I'll go crazy from the sleepless nights. Reading Chapter 6 tells me my intuition is wrong. I should have another child very quickly (if possible) because I've adapted to the disagreeable experience of getting no sleep. I guess you could go the other way and say welcoming a new baby into the family is a pleasurable experience (which it certainly is) so you should break it up. However, I see my parents trying to adapt to taking care of small children after so many years of grown up kids and am leaning towards grouping my years as a crazy woman together.

ASBC: Sisyphus, Joe, and Chad

The Anti-Social Book Club is in session! (i.e., my book is due back at the library on Friday.)

Anyway, because I don't get a paycheck for the work I do, I liked Ariely's question, "What besides a paycheck confers meaning on work?" I also enjoyed Ariely's retelling of the legend of Sisyphus and his meaningless task. (He rolls a boulder up the mountain, almost to the top, only to see it bounce back to the bottom of the mountain again.) I identify with this doomed man. Laundry, dishes, preparing meals, general cleaning--all Sisyphean tasks.

In many ways, the "work" part of my husband and I's lives are very similar. Austin goes to banks and makes sure they are financially sound and then comes back a year later to do it all over again. I spend much of my day on repetitive tasks, only to wake up the next day and repeat the same tasks. We don't mind what we do. Some days we really like it. (Remember, I'm not talking about the "I-love-my-kids" part of parenting, just the "physical work" part of parenting.)

Remember Joe and Chad in Chapter Two? They both liked building Bionicles, but Chad's get destroyed right after he builds them. Joe builds a little longer, because the experimenters hold on to his Bionicles. Austin and I are a little like Joe and Chad: "Joe could maintain the illusion that his work was meaningful, and so continued to enjoy building his Bionicles. Chad, on the other hand, witnessed the piece-by-piece destruction of his work, forcing him to realize that his work was meaningless." I just had to laugh reading it. It was a perfect description of what happens at my house after I cook a delicious meal or clean--my family takes mere minutes to conduct a "piece-by-piece destruction of my work," eating the meal or spreading toys all over the floor. Perhaps Austin can extract more meaning from his work because his reports don't get ripped up right after he writes them.

So should I give up and stay on the sofa watching soap operas and eating bon-bons all day? Ariely gives me hope: "The translation of joy into willingness to work seems to depend to a large degree on how much meaning we can attribute to our own labor." Unless I provide a greater meaning to dishes, laundry, making meals, and general cleaning, I will become bitter, hopeless, and pessimistic about life. So, here you are: I am doing service, learning to become like Christ, making my home like the temple, providing a nurturing environment, making my home a place my family wants to spend time in, etc. I could add that I'm keeping my family healthy by cleaning, bathing, wiping bums, (kids only) and feeding them nutritious meals. However, the spiritual meanings popped into my head before the physical ones, and as those are the ones that have more of a lasting impact, I should probably focus on those.

More posts on this book coming in the next few days.