Karl Marx (the difficulty of binary decision-making).
A young lad stands by a creek and considers existential questions about life, and if there's wild boars in the nearby forest
Two (is the most confusing number)
Is it time for supper yet?
This is a question he asks regularly at 6 am-ish.
He is three, and I love talking about almost everything with him, including politics, philosophy, food, Sesame Street, and his current heavy interest, Poetry.
I marvel at the ability of young children to process large amounts of information and draw connections amongst disparate ideas and ask questions that are beyond the capability of many Older People, such as myself, to do anymore. I marvel.
Which makes it super fascinating, to me, the recurring challenges kids have with certain binary decisions.
It is fascinating how often the most difficult decisions are binary ones. Of course it’s difficult to make decisions when you have a bunch of them thrown at you. But it can be equally difficult, or even more so, to have to choose between only two options. The best example I can think of is between left and right.
Was I supposed to turn right…or make sure and not turn right?
Life is confusing.
I think there’s also some sort of lesson in there about the importance of how we present choices or options to our kids. Do we present what we don’t want them to do…
…or what we do want them to do?
Reincarnation
He pulled them around: a ten-year old slogging his 3- and 1-year old brothers down the non-snowy, non-mountain, non-slope of our flat, dark hallway, in a large sleigh.
In a former life, this sleigh existed as a large cardboard box. In its current iteration, it became the glorious conveyor of kings and royalty; transformed with some felt markers, scissors, flimsy cord, and the kind Herculean strength of a long-haired older brother.
Morning history : Communism
Over breakfast, we discussed:
Communism versus Capitalism
The difference the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat, and the casual indifference with which Karl Marx lumped pretty much anyone owning land or too much property in with the former, thus forcing the arbitrary distinction of merely two classes of people
The Industrial Revolution and the move from farms to factories
The notion of history in context (one of my faves): for example, the fact that while Marx was developing his theories on class distinctions and revolution…the American Civil War and Southern slave economy was still firmly entrenched.
The idea of “Big Years” in history. Specifically, 1917, year of the Russian Revolution. Followed by a convo about how 2020 will be viewed down the line.
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