Parental Timeout? Nawwww.

It is not very often I lose control over my emotions. I have always tended to be a fairly level headed individual, not given to extremes in either way. But a little while ago I was driving along in my car, just listening to some talk radio on CBC-FM when an interview not only got my attention, it caused me to grip the wheel and start yelling at my radio and in the process spraying the interior of my car with both invectives and spittle. I am quite surprised that the people at Queen’s Park haven’t legislated against talk radio as a distraction to drivers. I mean, I have had a car phone (since the days they were referred to by that name) since the late 1980's and in all those conversations, both pleasant and angry, I haven’t been distracted to the point that I caused a car accident. However, I do have to admit that I have nearly rear-ended someone after committing a Linda Blair. More than once I have twisted my neck through an unnatural arc trying to catch the swaying motions of a woman who sauntered down the street in a dangerously short skirt. Personally, legislating against attractive people walking on the street would probably do more to keeping eyes on the road than banning cell phone conversations.

The interview I was listening to was with a woman who was advocating against yelling at your children. Kind of ironic that such a topic could make me scream, huh? She thought that yelling at your children would cause them untold levels psychological trauma. She acknowledged that parents can and do become angry at children for not doing what they are told. Her solution to avoid the inevitably escalating argument was for the parents to take a time out. Really. I ain’t lyin’, she said this. Thinking back to when my children were young, it seemed to me that they made it a sport to see which parent would explode first. Maybe in this woman’s world, the sun rises in the west, animals talk to her in the morning and birds help her dress, but in my gritty reality, raised voices were not just to make a point but it was a matter of survival of the loudest. It was a challenge to even be heard over the din of three young children. She suggested a situation that if you are running late and the kids just won’t get dressed for school that you say to the children... in a soft reassuring voice, “I am going to go into the next room for a time out and in that time, if you can think of a way to help me get you ready for school, I would really appreciate it.” Then, I suppose magically, after a parental time out, she would return and the children would all be lined up at the door, in declining order of height, hair combed and lunch bags firmly in hand with self-satisfied smiles plastered on their cute little faces; a Von Trapp moment. In my world the script would read more like, ”John, I know you are focused on the world of science and in your quest for the betterment of society on the whole. I am also proud that you are pursuing the goals and dreams of an inquisitive 5 year old mind, but I am going into the next room for a time out and in that time if you could possibly rethink the idea of encouraging your baby sister to put that dinner fork in the electrical outlet. Your mother, the entire staff at the Emergency Ward and I would greatly appreciate it.”

Not that yelling is inherently a good thing, but, in my opinion, it is far from being the traumatizing incident that some people may think. Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at Calvin College in Michigan states that, “When afraid, children learn poorly. Fear is a very bad teacher.” Sorry Marj, I beg to differ. Fear is a very good teacher. Specifically, it is how we learn not to do dumb things... again. She says that time outs or a firm, ”No” are better than yelling. But isn’t a firm “No” on the border of yelling? I am sure that if you look closely enough in the Bible, the Lord or somebody else spake in a booming voice to the rabble that always seemed to gather around mountains and such.

France has introduced a law making it a criminal act to yell at your spouse, citing the psychological violence it inflicts. I will agree that in some cases, words can be a fearful weapon and can have an horrendous effect on someone. But there is a difference between yelling and verbal abuse. The idea that you can be convicted of a criminal act for yelling at your spouse for not putting the cap on the Crest is a bit much. France, that beacon of rational thought in the 18th century, a pillar of republican ideals and causes for hundreds of years has wholeheartedly embraced the political correct craziness of the 21st century. However, I do have the feeling, that this law must have been enacted by men. It has been my experience that a woman’s retort by far is much more rapier-like than a man’s standard response of, “Oh yeah?”

So what it really comes down to is this; in a perfect world, just like in a perfect economy, some people think that the way things should progress, is the way they will progress. The real world is far removed from that way of thinking. Yelling may not be the best tool we have to raise our kids or interact with our spouses, but raising your voice in frustration or in trying to make a point is as much a part of life as talking. In all my years of sports, from the gentlemen-like nature of cricket where we all wore white ducks, to the rough, tough and bloody scrum of rugby, yelling was part of the game. Even at the best jobs in the world, someone at some point is going to start yelling at you for whatever reason. Be it the coffee is too hot, or if you looked at someone the wrong way or if someone’s animals didn’t talk to them that morning, you can count on the fact someone will take it out on you. If you are not equipped to handle someone yelling at you and you never experienced such action when you were a child, how will you ever deal with it as an adult? Maybe as was suggested, you could propose to your coach or boss, that if they could take a time out in the other room before they raise their voices, things might work out for the better. But something tells me not to hold my breath over that one.

The Transmigration of Tom Cruise and Other Scarey Thoughts

There are some who argue that as a child we are born tabula rasa, that is a blank slate without any influence of genetics or any other influences bred into us. There are others who believe that we are born preconditioned with lessons and experiences imprinted on us. Nature versus nurture. I am not sure where I lie in this argument, some people feel that they have some sort of past life that has been encoded into them, while others feel that there was nothing before them and all that shaped them were present day living. There are certainly arguments floating around on both sides of the issue, but really only one entity knows for sure and apparently He or She isn’t sharing that with us at this point.

There are the discussions of Plato who argued that there are a fixed amount of souls. According to the writings of Aristotle, the soul is not what makes a body move. Even before that step, a soul must first take what biological entities we are made up of, all those different chemicals and water and turns that into a body. A corpse is not a body and as such a body is not a corpse, contrary to all those police procedural dramas on TV. The soul is what makes it exist as a living body. Unlike the body, which has being only through the soul, the soul itself is a principle of being, and therefore, once created, cannot not be. In other words, the soul is incorruptible, and never ceases to be what it already is. And the circular notion of that argument is supplanted only by the poison scene in Princess Bride.

The Greeks jumped in with their idea of Metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις, for those of you who crave detail) which is a philosophical term again referring to transmigration of the soul. Scientology believes that there are only a fixed number of souls, which means that Tom Cruise has really existed for eternity and it certainly felt that way if you ever had to sit through Mission Impossible 3. The Taoist also have similar thoughts and ironically this belief gave me the central arc of my comedic screenplay, “If This is Heaven...”, where the fixed number of souls has created a way-station in paradise before allowing the soul to move on. Nietzsche has weighed in on this as well, but I think I have bandied about enough names and beliefs for now, I can sense your eyes, as mine, are glazing over.

Suffice to say, this is a time honoured and an ongoing debate and the only time the answer becomes apparent is when you die and then I figure you have to sign an Oath of Secrecy to never reveal this information to mere mortals. Well, unless you are Tom Cruise and then apparently the rules of the universe are thrown out the window, metaphorically speaking.

So what is the point of this article you may well ask? I was asking the exact same question about three paragraphs ago. You have to remember that my education was rooted firmly in economics and all of this philosophical stuff sounds like, well, greek to me. But I am sure many people say the same thing about economic theory (What you say? There is such a thing as economic theory?).

As mentioned, I am not sure where I fall in all this, but there are some very odd memories that have been with me for many years. Uncomfortable moments that for some reason cause the hair on the back of my neck to rise. One of the most vivid and dread inducing things I can see is a shipwreck of any kind. I do not know why it is, but if I see a lake freighter aground or even a pleasure boat upside down my breath gets short and I have a strong desire to emulate the figure in the Edvard Munch painting, The Scream. This is not a good thing for a guy who scuba dives. Acute anxiety does not play well a few atmospheres below the water. Encountering an underwater wreck? It feels the way I would image someone walking all over my grave. To quote David Letterman, there is just something hinky about the whole damn thing.

The other is the American Civil War. I remember collecting bubble gum cards in the early 1960's that had such a graphic depiction of the war that I am surprised they were even sold. Try to do that nowadays and you would be buried under a sea of sociologists, psychologists and every concerned parent for the normal development of a child breathing down your neck. But in my generation, they were just pictures a of a very, very bloody war, probably a good lesson to pass on. But I always felt somehow I was part of it. Which side has never really manifested itself, whether Union or Rebel, I don’t know. I just have this feeling I was in it somewhere and probably died in it somewhere.

I doubt I am the only one who has had this type of feeling, that somehow you have experienced something that was foreign to you but at the same time feels somewhat familiar. Maybe it awakened some long buried thought causing an avalanche of unexperienced memories to flow forth. Whether these are false memories as some claim or really are imprints from another soul, again we won’t ever know for sure and that kind of adds to the romance of the thing.

I found a paperback many years ago (Decisive Battles of the Civil War by Lt. Col. Joseph Mitchell) that listed all the Civil War sites and overlapped them with modern day maps and highways. I have a fascination with taking that trip someday to see if anything twigs. I wouldn’t quite say it was a compulsion, that brings up images of Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters with the Third Kind, kind of compulsion. But I would like to make it an adventure sometime. However with my luck, I’ll go for a leisurely scuba dive and come across a Civil War sunken ship and from that double whammy my friends, it will spell the end of me. Well, until I park myself in some other body.. corpse... entity, well you understand.