A grandfather’s reflections
by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
published in The Stream, January 2005
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It was a strange holiday season, juxtaposing a wonderful round of family affairs with grandsons and the tsunami devastation in South Asia, as we begin to come out of the unusual geophysical and climatic quiet of the past few centuries. I’m not dwelling on the latter at this point, except to note that we have some serious work ahead of us and, I believe, a meaningful contribution to make. Now I’d like to debrief some of the family affairs as a way of sorting out my own thoughts and perceptions to expand on the good things happening.
Today was totally invested in taking our older grandson to the AeroSpace Museum down at the Smithsonian. A great enough time was had by all so that we will do it again soon but at Natural History. Young Jimmy was sufficiently wowed by an Imax film on the international space station, and a nice “Infinity Express” showing at the planetarium. Much of the day was spent running from interactive exhibit to interactive exhibit. Seven years old, Jimmy was treating these as playthings, as well he should, and I was happy to let him run around forming impressions rather than to try to formalize any concepts or understandings. However, I did find occasion, 5-6 times, to ask him, “What do you think they are trying to show you here?”
I did not expect, nor did I receive, any formal or well-conceptualized answers; several times the question was ignored as he eagerly ran to yet another exhibit. That may well be the case the next museum visit as well, maybe several over the next half year or year. But it is a question I’m planning to continue asking, and encourage both Susan, his grandmother, and daughter Erika, his mother, to also ask, without pressing and without expecting formal answers. Somewhere along there I expect him to think to himself, “What ARE they trying to show me here in this exhibit?” I believe this will ignite a new and deeper level of cognition.
That in turn is but one step away from a truly wonderful configuration in which one can be looking at ANY phenomenon and asking, what are the things it is trying to teach me, and/or what are things I can learn or discover from this. For some of the significance of this, please see the appendix in Beyond O.K. ( http://www.winwenger.com/beyondok.htm ) titled, “What is the Message?” which addresses an information-theory model of the universe and everything within it. My belief is that if I’m utterly patient and support the free child in him, he may have by age 11-12 the bases not only for building a good intellect (he is already quite bright), but a great sense of wonder.
In anticipation of today’s trip, I had bought two (and brought along one) pocket recorders, and while driving down to the Smithsonian, I just a bit modeled the process of recording incidental observations into the recorder. I did so only lightly, didn’t make a major point of it for this round. But my plan is eventually, when things are ripe, to “hire” Jimmy to record a bunch of observations – something that catches his eye, what there is about it that interested him, why that is interesting or what further notion that triggers. Example: a tree in the mini-park next to where I live is protected by trees and buildings on three sides. On the exposed side, from the roots up the trunk is a swollen stripe of extra trunk very like a muscle sinew, curves and all. Not too hard to imagine Jimmy, if given the chance to relate to that tree, seeing the tree in terms of having developed an extra “muscle” on the exposed side to support it against stormwinds.
I believe if I can induce him to make a few dozen such observations over several weeks, he will get much closer to his senses than most people ever get, and will reflexively notice more and experience richly more of most of what he finds around him in life. At least that is my tentative plan, one which in no apparent way comes at the expense of his being the wonderful and enjoyable child that he is.
My pretext for so hiring him is that I’m a writer and researcher, and want to capture a child’s perspective. In fact, I might eventually be able to do something useful with such observations as accumulate. I’m hoping also to find a more general form of this procedure, as I get further into it, that anyone can use with his own child or grandchild, one which won’t require this particular pretext.
Why am I involving you-all with this?
- I’m sorting out my own perceptions thereby; I want to be the best grandfather I can be for several very special and wonderful human beings.
- This kind of work is very much part of the work which I think we are trying to do or should be trying to do.
- This is a unique opportunity for me to learn more.
- I wanted you to know why I’ve not gotten the next two Quickbooks (Borrowed Genius and the new work with Sidebands) fully drafted over the holiday season.
What did I get out of writing you this information? One thing is some sense and rationalization of this grandfathering thing helping me in what I’m trying to do in Project Renaissance; also a reminder to me that it’s human beings that all of this is in service of – that the system we are building is the means and not the end.
And on that note, let me conclude by wishing you the warmest, happiest, most productive and most human 2005 possible.