I've been thinking about this lately. It began when we were talking, in Search, about Lame Deer and his vision quest, which brought up a discussion of rites of passage and moments that changed one's life.
This guy, Will, spoke up about how he wrested in high school; he said he had thought it was trivial and just something he did to amuse himself, until he and his wrestling team visited a young boy with brain cancer. This boy admired Will and his teammates for their wrestling skill, and Will said he realized that his wrestling wasn't trivial at all--quite the opposite, that it was very important because it improved the boy's life.
Now, while Will was talking about this, I was scoffing and thinking that would be like my saying that marching band changes the world--but I wondered if maybe they were more important than I had thought.
Duvall said that her family had sent her brother (your average plugged-into-Playstation 15-year-old) to a summer camp where he was left in the woods for two or three nights by himself with a book of matches, a few other essential items, and a journal. He told her the things that he had learned about himself in those few days were amazing. Granted, he's still your average plugged-into-Playstation 16-year-old now, but that experience changed him for the better, and she was glad that he shared that with her.
Caitlyn countered, saying that experience is not typical for this culture: that most families don't send their adolescent son into the woods for a journey toward self-discovery. She said that most growing up is done slowly, not in big spurts like that, and everyone is different; she gave the example that people realize things at different times, saying that she could have understood something at 12 that maybe Duvall wouldn't have at 17 or 18, or vice versa. So forcing people to grow up because it is tradition to hold a ceremony at a certain age may be uncalled for or just inappropriate for our time.
I answered, in agreement with both of them. Our culture is such that it does not, for the most part, include these institutions like the vision quest: where a young man, around 16 years old, goes to a hilltop and sits in his vision pit--a hole dug into the ground--for four days with no food and no water; only a pipe, a blanket, and a rattle or gourd with 40 pieces of a relative's flesh inside (in Lame Deer's case, it was his grandmother who carved these herself) as a remembrance of his family's protection and a sense of security. In our society, events might happen to a person that necessitate him or her maturing more quickly, but none are culturally-founded. As a rule, then, growing up happens slowly, especially in this era, when many are guaranteed a longer childhood/adolescence.
I started thinking about how dependent I am on my parents, and I am almost 20 years old. A century ago (100 years: only five times my lifespan), I would most likely already be married to someone (ordained by my parents) and would definitely not enjoy the wealth of education that I may so freely (not in the financial sense) partake of today. I suppose then, I would rely on my husband: just a different kind of dependence
And then I started wondering, really how important could marching band be? I'm pretty sure we didn't help any children with cancer. After all, we were just a bunch of kids stomping around field, honking on various pieces of metal or wood.
And then I wondered what was really important in the world. What is the most important thing; against what can I gauge my experience to determine the "importance percentile", so to speak? I can't decide, so how am I ever to know? I don't know if wrestling is important, or marching band, or much else. I asked Olivia if she thought ballet was important; she said, "Ballet is trivial. It just is." But it occurred to me that I thought ballet was important because of the beauty it brought to this world which is in such dire need of beauty. Does marching band bring beauty to the world? I think so, if it's good enough. But does that make mediocre marching band (or any other thing) irrelevant? What about wrestling? (I have yet to see the art form in wrestling, though perhaps you, my loyal readership, will be able to tell me wherein the element of beauty lies.)
I decided, in the end, that love and beauty are important: they make the world a better place. So does that make me some sort of a Bohemian? I also consider hate and ugliness important too, to act as a counterbalance, to make love and beauty stand out. Do we need hate and ugliness, then?
Somebody answer some questions.
