let me play the lion
Yesterday, our neighbour’s boy was brave enough to bring cookies and ask for our attention. He was bored and we were there, sitting on the balcony, right before moving on and doing serious perfumery business. So we played the lion who hunts the elk (elk from IKEA, lion is cuddly but of uncertain origin) and the elk had to hide about 100 times in our old suitcase (see strawberry picture of yesterday) and later the rabbit joined the elk and both chased the lion and then the lion had to hide in the suitcase.
Natural habitats of these animals did not matter.
But before playing the lion endlessly I learned how important classification for children seems to be. We discussed bees and flies. And differences there. …So we all discovered:Â There are biting animals (like lions) , there are stingy animals (bees et al), there are scissors animals (lobster etc.) and so on. This list goes on, and left me thinking “patterns” and how we are all desperately trying to put our world into a raster that should help us cope with a world full of unknowns. In a sense we are all in desperate search for patterns everywhere.
This is one reason why we are grateful for hints on notes in fragrances, a raster to start discovering the unknown, even if the notes are not always helpful. Cystal fresia anyone?
Soon we ended up discussing on our balcony what a scorpion is, stingy animal or scissor animal?
June 24th, 2008 at 11:13 am
It is very early here; the sun is a rufous, angry ball on the horizon.
I just read this to B- who sends you his love, and we smiled over it- with our coffee.
You see the issue clearly, friend.
Crystal freesia feels stingy to me, but could be mordant, depending on its placement, use.
How I love you.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Dear Andy, imagination and logic of children - always result me in the certain confusion. Even in a greater measure, than female logic:-)
Both the thinking and logic of creative people considerably differs also to me it seems in a greater measure resembles a nursery - direct and unpredictable.
Your phrase ” In a sense we are all in desperate search for patterns everywhere. ” yes it is told is remarkable is an aphorism or as the certain vital program.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Yes! Classifying things is human nature. It is part of the reason we have so little peace in our lives as well. We spend so much time with patterns and classifications that we miss out on reality. Some things we call good and some bad. Some things are safe and some dangerous. Some things bring me happiness and some pain. The tragedy is when our lives are consumed with trying to hold onto happiness and avoid the things that bring pain. Actually, this last part is so scary to me because humans spend so much time doing these things that they forget to live!
Here in Mexico, we have many, many scorpions (do you in Switzerland?). They are the creepiest looking things and they trigger in me an instant fear (maybe genetic?) and my instinct is to squash them…instantly. My neighbor, a native Mexican, gently takes them outside and sets them free on the mountain! I would definitely say they fall into the stingy category!
June 24th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Dear Kelley
Yep…I guess our scorpion situation here does not compare to yours. We only have (never seen one) scorpions somewhere south after the alps. I agree on stingy category. Pico, our neighbor didn’t….
Indeed, we humans have a pattern obsession. On the other hand, without it , we would fail as species. .. maybe culture has allowed us to pervert this natural trait and we are now pursuing not happiness (which is quite easy to reach provided have basic human rights) but wealthiness. But here I stop. This is endless…
June 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Dear Chayaruchama
Love you too!
June 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Dear Vladimir
yes, so much about children logic. Hard to grasp once you crossed the border to adolescence, a treasure for ideas and creativity if you managed to keep it and safe if for future use. sending you fragrant greetings
June 24th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Pattern hunting is as pleasurable as pattern breaking, sometimes - I like the fact that a scorpion broke the pattern of animals! I think the scorpion is a distractomobile. It has a stinger, lobster-like claws, spider-like mouthparts and eight-leggedness, a swan tail, its lungs are below its sex organs, and it otherwise defies a lot of imagined standards for the animal world. Parthenogenesis, anyone?
June 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I have always been rather fond of the tardigrade, a microscopic eight-legged “bear” that lives in moss. Read about this beautiful and rather endearing animal here:
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/tardigrade/
I recommend to those who are interested in the human tendency to categorize and what it has to do with our endless search for meaning, Claude Levi-Strauss’ classic “The Savage Mind” (Le Pensee Sauvage”. In terms of our “modern” Western systems of categorization, many other cultures’ systems seem strange and arbitrary … but inevitably they (like little Pico’s system) have their own internal logic.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Oh, yes, Risa
( I was clueless about Scorpion lungs …wow!)
absolutely. Pattern breaking is fun! I asked Pico what I am . Confusion was the result. Humans are not animals… but then I told him that I am proud to be a biting animal. ;-)
Wow, Vasily, the tardigrades… I want to fall in a state of cryptobiosis next winter! and I wonder what it looks like, a carnivore tardigrade hunting another, peaceful plant juice drinking tardigrade.
Indeed, tardigrade might be perfect to colonize space, respectively travel space and then colonize. So…biting animal?
and thanks for the book tip. I am planning the books for my summer holiday and levi-strauss might complement my sci-fi 100% fun books
June 25th, 2008 at 8:36 am
The kid’s behavior free from unnecessary conventionalities and formalities. You need attention, so you take cookies and go to the uncle neighbor. It’s so sweet ;-)
It’s also nice to explore the world by thinking in patterns and classifying everything and enjoying the order it gives… until you find that there are exceptions - the things that don’t fit - like scorpions.
And it becomes even more difficult later when you find that you can classify differently depending on the point of view. Like the scorpion is a stinging from a human’s point of view as we expect the danger from his tale and not from its pincers. But actually he has them both ;-)
Well some of us learn easily to switch the point of view and make a new classification. Others are more inert in this. Some of us never learns it. That’s life when you are grown up ;-)
June 25th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Oh, exceptions everywhere,… a disaster! ;-)