Turtles All The Way
Turtles All The Way,
In and Out With Bucky Fuller,
Why Changing Light Bulbs Makes My Pants Fall Off,
Why We've Been Eating The Wrong Fish For New Years' Maybe,
and
Regrets
I guess it's an old East-Indian folk tale that the world rests on the back of an elephant, who is in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle. Asked what that turtle stood upon, an ancient savant said "Oh, it's turtles all the way down!"
I was raised with an image of the Earth being held up by Atlas. I assumed, when I heard this story, that Atlas was actually standing on the elephant, but the remainder seems fairly reasonable.
Although it kinda overlooks gravity, which under this scenario might have a negative effect on those living in the southern hemisphere.
I have long been a fan of Buckminster Fuller, and attended a lecture by him while I was a student at the University of Colorado in the early seventies. Bucky always started his lectures with some definitions of terms. For example, "in" and "out", which he used in lieu of "down" and "up" respectively. Looking at gravity on Earth from an objective view, "in" and "out" make perfect sense, because "up" and "down" are relative, and therefore refer to different directions at every point on the Earth's surface, whereas "in" and "out" are the same everywhere on the planet ... either toward the center of the Earth (in, or down), or away from it (out, or up).
The Atlas image and the "turtles all the way down" don't really work out with this concept, as they require a sense of down being the bottom of the page, which really only works for those in the extreme northern latitudes. Odd, then, that the story of Atlas apparently originated in Greece, which has roughly the same latitude as San Francisco, and the turtles story comes from India, which is at about the same latitude as Panama, both of which would be in severe distress if South were Down.
Nevertheless, it is the image of Atlas holding up the world which often comes to mind when I'm changing light bulbs. This is because, as you can clearly see, if gravity holds down Atlas and all the elephants and turtles and so-on, everything on the bottom of the world, i.e., from the equator southward, would fall right off!
And so it is with my pants. Although I think the world of myself, what I'm getting at here is that my torso resembles nothing quite so much as a world-sphere. The only was I can keep my pants on this sphere is to hitch them up until they ride at least a bit above the equator, then cinch them tightly and hope for the best.
Problems arise when I have to suck in my gut for one reason or another. I lose my pants when trying to squeeze between cars in a parking lot for example. Well, I don't actually lose them, they're right there, around my knees; what is lost is whatever vestige of dignity a man with a spherical torso can have. At least, in this situation, I can simply haul them back up again, shielded as I am by cars on either side.
More problematic is standing on the top of a step-ladder and doing work over my head, such as changing the light bulb in a ceiling-mounted fixture. As the torso stretches out, my world-sphere turns into more of a vertical world-sausage, and again, the pants fall off.
In this situation, however, salvaging dignity is generally beyond hope. I am, after all, poised on the top of a ladder with something in my hands, which means a) I can't immediately reach down and pull up my pants, and b) I am in no way shielded from view. This is particularly discomfiting when the work is being performed outside. For instance, on our second-floor balcony. On a busy street. Across the street from the police station.
So my attitude is one of sorrow for the hapless onlooker, devotion to the task at hand, and keeping a calm demeanor until I can climb down, my maintenance task successfully completed, pull up my pants, and go about my business.
This bit of geometry and TMI physics may help you understand why the older, more spherical among us either c) wear our pants way up on our chests as often depicted in cartoons (i.e. in the stratosphere above the hypothetical north pole), or d) wear suspenders.
It does not, however explain why guys wear their belts completely below their gut. This is done so that they can continue to buy the same size pants as they wore in high school, and is a symptom of denial.
Wrong Fish
My mother, God bless her, was a font of wisdom and foul language. She also used the word "fricky-dill" in such a way as to make you toes curl, even though I guess it is not strictly a bad word.
Anyway, she was full of old-wives tales about what to eat and do on New Year's Day so as to ensure a successful New Year. Among these was to avoid chicken, an animal which scratches backward, and favor fish, one which swims forward, you see, to ensure that the year would propel you forward toward your goals, not backward into the same old woes as last year.
We have often had salmon for New Year's Day dinner in fulfillment of this maternal prescription, not that we're superstitious. Not at all. But it occurs to me suddenly, that salmon might not really be the best fish for this occasion, as it swims upstream. So maybe cod. Whatta ya think?
Regrets
I have long felt that I have had but one regret in my life, and that was a trivial one. I've generally had a very good life.
But as I've gotten older, I have come to realize that many of the memories I roll about and toy with like a sore tooth are not just memories, but mini-regrets. These memories come with a breath of melancholy and ambiguity. Nothing that I would really like to change, but I feel a certain amount of chagrin about opportunities that I missed because I was too dopey to see them, or too cowardly to try them, or too lazy to follow them through.
Luckily, too, as I've gotten older, I have shed all of these unsavory personal traits like a snake sheds its skin. Maybe a poor metaphor, but you get the idea: I'm a much improved person now. Really.
posted by Mique @ 6:48 PM
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