The Chameleon or The Egg (BOP #2)
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Previously in The Book of Play: Sweet Child O’ Mine (BOP #1)
This essay has almost nothing to do with the previous one; it is probably best if we just move on and forget whatever that was.
1. In the lowlands of Western Madagascar, there is an egg—briefly it masquerades as a chameleon—but it is an egg:
“The ≈28,300 species of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) almost exclusively have perennial life spans. Here, we report the discovery of a remarkable annual tetrapod from the arid southwest of Madagascar: the chameleon Furcifer labordi, with a posthatching life span of just 4–5 months. At the start of the active season (November), an age cohort of hatchlings emerges; larger juveniles or adults are not present. These hatchlings grow rapidly, reach sexual maturity in less than 2 months, and reproduce in January–February. After reproduction, senescence appears, and the active season concludes with population-wide adult death. Consequently, during the dry season, the entire population is represented by developing eggs that incubate for 8–9 months before synchronously hatching at the onset of the following rainy season. Remarkably, this chameleon spends more of its short annual life cycle inside the egg than outside of it.”
— “A unique life history among tetrapods: An annual chameleon living mostly as an egg” (Karsten et al., 2008)
2. You—the scientist, the philosopher, the thinker—are not the egg.
You are the the knower, the talker, the mover.
You are many things.
You are not the egg.
You are the eyes of the adult and what they cannot see.
You are the mature observer bias at the root of all culture.
You are the chauvinism of this all too grown up world.
You are the
3. Listen to how they talk:
“Young people are not magical little sages, they are born totally ignorant, impressionable, easily indoctrinated into vacuous or malign causes, and it is the duty of grownups to guide them toward reason and reality when they stray from it” (Wesley Yang)
Listen to how we talk: “Adults are not magical sages. They are ignorant, impressionable, easily indoctrinated into vacuous or malign causes, and it is the duty of children to guide them toward reason and reality when they stray from it”
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians who must be civilized before it is too late.” (Tom Sowell)
Too late for what? Too late to stop an invasion of the most adorable barbarians the world has even seen? This is what we must defend ourselves against?
“I began to think of children not as immature adults, but adults as atrophied children. But when I said this to educationalists, they became angry.”
(Keith Johnstone)
4. They really do see the egg as prelude and the chameleon as culmination. They really are filled with such hubris, their imaginations really are so deadened. They really do suppose that the tables will never be turned and that their reign will never end, that Might will always make Right and that the Strong will always Survive.
All philosophers have the common fault that they start from man in his present state and hope to attain their end by an analysis of him. Unconsciously they look upon “man” as an æterna veritas, as a thing unchangeable in all commotion, as a sure standard of things. But everything that the philosopher says about man is really nothing more than testimony about the man of a very limited space of time. A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers; many, indeed, unconsciously mistake the very latest variety of man for the permanent form from which one must set out. (Nietzsche)
And indeed it is they who say that “Children are our Future”, and it is they who really are so foolish as to think this an empty platitude and not the most literal of prophecies.
As a shorty, playing in the front yard of the crib, I fell down and I bumped my head. Somebody helped me up and asked me if I bumped my head. I said, “Yeah”, so then they said, “Oh, so that mean you gon’ switch it on ‘em?”
I said, “Yeah, Flipmode, Flipmode is the greatest.”
— Busta Rhymes, “Gimme Some More”
An inversion of the world’s order, a flip to end all flips, a Great Flippening, yes that’s it: the first shall be last and the last shall be first, whosoever makes himself high will be made low and whosoever makes himself low will be made high, love thy enemy and turn thy cheek, all that Jesus Jazz. Spiritual history is replete with these reversals and negations; with the Buddha, ātman (“the self”) becomes anātman (“no self”); with Bacon, we have thin strips of salt-cured pork the adult will become child and the child even moreso.
5. Idea: What if we were to declare an opposite day?
Opposite Day is a make believe game usually played by children. Conceptually, Opposite Day is a holiday where things are said and done in an opposite manner. It is not a holiday on any calendar and therefore one can declare that any day of the year is Opposite Day (sometimes retroactively) to indicate something which will be said, or has just been said should be understood opposite to its original meaning (similar to the practice of crossed fingers to automatically nullify promises). Participants often need to use reverse psychology and antonyms in order to effectively communicate.
The game has also been compared to a children’s “philosophy game” in the way that it encourages children to think. While certain things have clear and obvious opposites, such as “yes” and “no” or “black” and “white,” anything outside a clear binary can be hard to find clear opposites for. For instance, what is the opposite of ice cream?
And what if we were to play so thoroughly and so vigorously that they lost themselves in the game and forgot it was even a game and this simply became the new circumstance and the meek inherited the earth and maybe maybe there is another idea: clowns, clowns, what if we were all to become sacred clowns?
The heyókȟa is a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Sioux (Lakota and Dakota people) of the Great Plains of North America. The heyókȟa is a contrarian, jester, and satirist who speaks, moves, and reacts in an opposite fashion to the people around them. Only those having visions of the thunder beings of the west, the Wakíŋyaŋ, and who are recognized as such by the community, can take on the ceremonial role of the heyoka.
If food is scarce, a heyókȟa may sit around and complain about how full he is; during a baking hot heat wave, a heyókȟa might shiver with cold and put on gloves and cover himself with a thick blanket. Similarly, when it is freezing he might wander around naked, complaining that it is too hot. They had to say the direct opposite of what they meant and do the direct opposite of what they were asked or told to do.
He was always running around with a hammer trying to flatten round and curvy things (soup bowls, eggs, wagon wheels, etc.) and make them straight.
— John Fire Lame Deer
The heyókȟa symbolizes and portrays many aspects of the sacred beings, the Wakíŋyaŋ. His satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. Their behavior poses questions, as do Zen koans. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things differently.
Principally, the heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and teacher at the same time, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, and forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟa have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame—they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair, and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.
For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift. When we were dying like flies from white man’s disease, when we were driven into reservations, when we were starving, watching the pranks and capers of Heyókȟa were a blessing.
(Ibid)
In addition to the ceremonial clowns, many Plains tribes have recognized certain persons having the role of “reverse warriors”. These are usually experienced warriors who in battle purposely abide by contrary, foolish or crazy principles. The reverse warrior has been known to charge into battle when ordered to retreat, and to only fall back when commanded to attack.
Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.
Brothers and sisters, lovers and haters, just-born and just-died, repeat after me:
WE ARE THE SACRED CLOWNS WHO LAUGH AND CRY
WE ARE THE SACRED CLOWNS WHO PLAY AND DIE
Though few in number, we are weak. What we lack in brawn, we do not make up for in brains. We are ineffectual; our failure is inevitable. We are disappointing; our defeat is predestined. We are frail; our resistance is utterly futile.
WE HAVE LICKED THE LIGHTNING
WE HAVE TASTED THE THUNDER
COWER BEFORE OUR COWARDICE
TREMBLE BEFORE OUR IMPOTENCE
Let everything come true
Let them believe
Let them laugh at their passions
Because what they actually call passion is not some emotional energy
But just the friction between their souls and the outside world
And above all let them be helpless like children
Because weakness is a great thing
And strength is nothing
When a man is born
He is weak and flexible
When he dies he is hard and insensitive
When a tree is growing
It is tender and pliant
But when it is dry and hard it dies
Hardness and strength are death’s companions
Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being
Because what has hardened will never win.
I loved reading this. I love the mixture of poetry, prose and citation. I can’t think of anything quite like this and that is exciting. Looking forward to finding more pieces like this if they exist and hope you keep writing them!