Yes, I gave away the ending of Chinatown.
Regarding truth
I don’t remember who said the following to me - maybe it was my wife. Becca. She said something like:
"…well, you do look younger than 44."
Which I took in good spirit, although I am not afraid of whatever age I happen to be. I happen to be 44 right now. Fortunately, I am surrounded by truth-tellers; the 10-year old version of which chose to shine a light on the veracity of her statement.
Actually, you look more like 45,
he told me confidently, using his many years of experience being around 45-year olds to support the statement.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently: how Growing Up is in many years symbolized by several changes. A primary one of these changes is the Loss of Truth. As you gain experience and understanding about human nature and social survival skills, you learn that Telling the Truth is often not a valuable commodity. There’s something thoughtful in there to think about.
Regardless of how old I look, my birth certificate still says I’m 44, and nobody’s arguing that. Unless ex-Pres Trump runs out of other conspiracies to chase after.
At the end of telling her uncle about watching the film First Cow
“…and it was interesting how they shot it in 4x3 aspect ratio, and I’m not really sure why.”
Sniff.
Thirteen years and change ago, we’re waiting for her to show up. Fast forward time portal to now and we’re discussing Orson Scott Card novels and filmic aspect ratios.
Time. It really does accelerate with age.
Things to be forgotten
A while back, a long while back, I made the mistake of telling our two older kids about a film they wouldn’t be seeing for awhile, and I made the mistake of giving away the ending. My thought process at the time was that it was a long ways off and of course they wouldn’t remember. Did they remember? Have they remembered?
Of course they have. Who am I to them? The guy who spoiled Chinatown for them, which they haven’t seen yet.
Also, I made an ill-advised analogy in their presence; an analogy which I would gladly subjugate to the incinerator of history, but which unfortunately got mis-transferred to the steel vaults of their twin hive-minds, meaning it will never be forgotten.
I wish I could just choose for them what will be remembered and what will be forgotten.
I mean, I don’t really wish that. But I sort of do.
Sniff again
I don’t remember how or why, but I was showing them the trailer for a certain documentary about a certain CEO of a certain multibillion dollar healthcare company whose rise and fall has been captivating.
Captivating, yes, but I still did a double take when our daughter asked a few days later:
I really want to see that Theranos documentary, can we watch the trailer again?
What’s the big deal about remembering a line like that, a question like that? What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that the rate of movement, of time moving, is so rapid now that it’s mind-blowing to experience the changes in each of our children; to see what captivates and interests them and what they’r drawn to…
…that change is a beautiful and terrifying thing, and it doesn’t come in a big way. It comes in a billion little ones, and I just wanted to write one or two of them down. To remember.
Because I want to.
