On Knowing Nothing and Why I am Embarrassed that I am a Know-it-All

My worst trait is that I am a know-it-all. I like to know things, and I feel amiss if I am not the one explaining. It’s an embarrassing trait. But I admit it. Awareness is half the battle, right? I like to know things. I am obsessive that way. 

Dicken's Mr. M'Choakumchild in the Age of No Child Left Behind

© 2000 Hearst Newspapers

Because I am a know-it-all, you’d think I’d be a sore loser. But I am not. I do not like to know stuff, so I can somehow feel superior to others. I just wish to know things and I will gladly listen if you have something new to teach me. 

As a teenager, I would get into bitter arguments with my parents about the minutiae of a such-and-such fact. Is a shark a fish? Why does Louisiana have the Napoleonic code? I think my parents thought I was just being a know-it-all. I am pretty sure my mom thought I was arrogant most of the time. I liked to read, and I wanted to find someone to bounce off ideas. When you're a kid, your audience options are limited.

Fish in the Sea (Or, Why I Like Aquariums)

Coney Island Beach back in the day.

I enjoy aquariums. The vast amount of water in large, transparent tanks transfix the eyes. I can watch stingrays all day. I anthropomorphize their bellies — don't you think they look like smiling faces? In New York — at Coney Island — there is a modest aquarium. I was excited when I found the moray eel hanging out behind a fake coral. Aquatic creatures! It's comforting to fantasize about life in water. One of my favorite Disney animations is The Sword in the Stone*— the boy Arthur turns into a squiggly little fish — then a squirrel — but it is the fish scene I liked the most. Wouldn't life be so much agiler under the waves? Well, when a garfish isn't chasing you.

Arthur (as a fish) being chased by a garfish 
in Disney's The Sword and the Stone (1963)

Lorelei from Superman III (1983) Reads Kant's Critque of Pure Reason

Superman III (1983)

You can read the above clip from Superman III as a dumb blonde joke writ large or as an insightful riff on philosophy. I am guessing it is the former rather than the latter. 

Playing the supposed ditzy lover of the film's villain, Lorelei reveals she is a fan of Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy - the eighteenth-century European thinker's idea that he could bring together two schools of thought - empiricism and rationalism. At least that's the general idea of the book Lorelei's caught reading — The Critique of Pure Reason.

Lorelei: How can he say that pure categories have no objective meaning in transcendental logic? What about synthetic unity? 

It looks like Lorelei has stumbled upon the truth of transcendental idealism — that things in themselves cannot really be known in of themselves. Or did she?

Louisiana Facts and Names of Places

The Louisiana State Seal

The seal lists the motto of the State: Union, Justice, and Confidence

What is the Meaning of the Pelican?

A mother pelican sits in her nest and protects her children. Maybe you learned in third grade and forgot what the symbol of the pelican is and why is it emblazoned on the seal. While it is true that the Brown Pelican is the state bird, the story has a deeper meaning. I posted on Facebook asking my friends what the pelican symbolizes and lo and behold Basil Burns, a Roman Catholic priest, explains: “The pelican was a symbol of Jesus at one time. It was once believed (mistakenly) that the pelican would pierce its breast and feed her young with her blood -- the parallel is obvious, of course. So it's very much about self-sacrifice! I wonder if we couldn't throw a crawfish in there somewhere, maybe, with a bunch of hungry humans gathered around it?” Yeah. That would be cool, Basil. Let's contact the U.S. mint and put a crawfish on the commemorative state quarter. So, next time you are in the great state of Louisiana, take a photograph of the pelicans that fly around Lake Pontchartrain - north of the city of New Orleans. They are visible in the early evening, right as the sun goes down and you can watch them nose dive into the lake searching for their prey.

Louisiana Parishes

Acadia	Claiborne	Jefferson Davis	Rapides	Tangipahoa
Allen	Concordia	Lafayette	Red River	Tensas
Ascension	De Soto	Lafourche	Richland	Terrebonne
Assumption	East Baton Rouge	La Salle	Sabine	Union
Avoyelles	East Carroll	Lincoln	St. Bernard	Vermilion
Beauregard	East Feliciana	Livingston	St. Charles	Vernon
Bienville	Evangeline	Madison	St. Helena	Washington
Bossier	Franklin	Morehouse	St. James	Webster
Caddo	Grant	Natchitoches	St. John the Baptist	West Baton Rouge
Caldwell	Iberia	Orleans	St. Landry	West Carroll
Cameron	Iberville	Ouachita	St. Martin	West Feliciana
Catahoula	Jackson	Plaquemines	St. Mary	Winn
	Jefferson	Pointe Coupee	St. Tammany

The following Louisiana places are in more than one county. Given here is the total population for each multi-county place, and the names of the counties it is in.

Arnaudville, pop. 1,444; St. Landry Parish (1,353), St. Martin Parish (91)

Delcambre, pop. 1,978; Vermilion Parish (1,438), Iberia Parish (540)

De Ridder, pop. 9,868; Beauregard Parish (9,511), Vernon Parish (357)

Des Allemands, pop. 2,504; St. Charles Parish (2,095), Lafourche Parish (409)

Downsville, pop. 101; Union Parish (82), Lincoln Parish (19)

Duson, pop. 1,465; Lafayette Parish (1,292), Acadia Parish (173)

Eunice, pop. 11,162; St. Landry Parish (10,930), Acadia Parish (232)

Junction City, pop. 749; Union Parish (644), Claiborne Parish (105)

Shreveport, pop. 198,525; Caddo Parish (198,034), Bossier Parish (491)

Tullos, pop. 427; La Salle Parish (427), Winn Parish (0)

Source: American Places Dictionary: A guide to 45,000 populated places, natural features, and other places in the United States.

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Save Me From Drowning My Creativity

"The Drowning Metaphor in Dreams" - What does it mean?

The Courage to Write
I’ve found the courage to write about my past. Looking back, however, is painful. I think the gods were smart when they cursed those who turned back. Orpheus lost his lady when he turned back to look at her in Hades. Some ancient Hebrews turned to salt when they looked back at the smoldering city of Sodom. An old adage, “Never look back,” reinforces the idea that one must push forward. The common turn of advice is, "Don't dwell on the past." Turning back and looking back seem to have negative consequences. But if psychology has taught me anything, it’s the idea that nothing ever truly goes away. It’s there, the bits and pieces, past loves and perceived let-downs. It must be that time - Spring - when that which was dead struggles to come back to life.

Under the Table and Dreaming 
Last night, I had a dream. I was witness to a drowning. The scene was a leafy layered lake. A body was found in the water. It was a disturbing dream. Straight out of Hamlet - Ophelia’s been drowned. But after thinking about it for a bit -the dream made sense. I was thinking of drowning too literally. I had to think psychologically. Since I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately, my psyche has become unsettled. That which was drowned comes to the surface. I guess that’s why another old adage - “drown your sorrows” - seems apt. I’d been drowning my sorrows - which makes sense when I think of my behaviors as of late. Something sunken rises again to the surface. So for me - what’s been unearthed? What has drowned? I feel like I’ve stifled my creativity. And for me to get it back I have to take care of that side of myself. Call it self-care. 

Taking Care of the Self — "Self Care, Yes, Momma!"
So it was a snow day. And I took care of myself. And I realized that one major problem I have is creating and planning my weekly classroom activities. Call it lesson plans or whatever. I go to sit and work. But nothing comes out of me. I’m drowned. To come up for air, what do I do? It’s a problem because my success depends on my ability to be creative. If I can’t successfully accomplish that then I’m truly sunk, and sunken. So I’m swimming to the surface, looking to get my magic back. What’s holding me back? Well - for one, the hierarchy of work holds me back. To be free to create you need “a room of one’s own” and inspiration to produce. That’s what I call incubation time. It’s important because without reflecting on my process, I feel like I am running on empty. That’s a self-defeating thought. It’s those thoughts that lead me to feel drowned.

Drawing Upon a Positive Mental Image
So I light upon a mental image of my success - from the past - and I build from there. What’s my image? It’s an image I have from a class I taught - near the beginning of my career - and the students were busy preparing a project - and everyone knew what they were doing. I am holding onto that image and hoping I can recreate that same modicum of "drive" for the last quarter of school. I need to find a project that will give our class a lift. Lift us from the Winter doldrums - to use the Spring as metaphor: put a spring in our step. Hope does spring eternal.

Ayuda, Me! 
Do any of you, readers, have any ideas? Help me not drown.

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How I Learned to Love Solitude and Why I Am No Longer a Benedictine Monk

I am going through old papers, tossing out papers, and boxing up books so I can move out of my apartment on April first.

Saint Joseph Abbey Church in St. Benedict, Louisiana

I realized I could not find any photographs of me as Brother Bede. I used to be a Benedictine monk. But the traces of that life are quickly receding.

Leaving a Monastery 
When I left Saint Joseph Abbey - a Benedictine monastery in Saint Benedict, Louisiana - I was twenty-eight years old (and six months). In my life as a monk, I was Brother Bede. I baked bread once or twice a week with my fellow monks, I went to daily prayers, ate with my community at the common table, worked in our college library - and I was a graduate student at the local university. That was nine years ago (and eight months, roughly).

As a monk, you are told: "To work is to pray." So I grew up in this dispensation. We were told that we were monks first. Our work was just something we did as part of our religious identity. If I was baking bread, or if I was studying Latin, I was merely living out my life of prayer and work. I was a monk. So don't complain.

The Life of the Monk
Life in the monastery followed a trajectory. And there were different stages of my life there. Depending on how you count the years, I was first a seminary student - I was called a scholastic. Then I was a postulant, then a novice, then a monk in temporary vows, then a monk in solemn vows - all for a total of ten years. 

I had just graduated from high school when I joined the seminary. It's crazy to think that was twenty years ago. In May, I am going to Louisiana to celebrate my high school reunion. But I probably won't visit the abbey where I gave ten years of my life - formative years (if you want to put it that way.)

I fantasize that when I tell people I was a monk, they think I lived in a stone hut, spoke to no one and ate bone stew and hard bread. The truth is my life as a monk was at the same time innocuous and magical. Life follows a scheduled rhythm in a monastery. Vigils, Morning prayers, Mass, Evening prayers, and Compline. Monks were assigned jobs. And for the most part, we went through our day praying, eating together, and performing our tasks.

Why did I Join?
People often ask me why I joined a monastery. What was going through my head? And then they ask me why I left the monastery. And people seem to be pretty curious about the whole process. For me - I wanted to be a priest or a monk from an early age. I can remember pretending to celebrate Mass with Ritz style crackers while my brothers complained (they'd rather play other games). When I was in High School, I was very much into Catholicism - and I made it pretty well known that I wanted to join the seminary when I graduated.

Read more about why I became celibate after the jump . . .

"Rest at pale evening . . ." - Excerpt from Langston Hughes's "Dream Variations"

Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me

- from Dream Variations, Langston Hughes

Personal Story

I like to collect quotes from poetry, from various sources, and whatnot. I have always liked this passage from Langston Hughes's poem "Dream Variations." Why do I like it? I like it because it is a relevant example of a poet exhorting darkness - extolling the color of blackness - rather than relegating "black" to a tired, and debilitating symbol of evil. So. That is why I like the poem. Hughes is resurrecting "black" as a symbol of beauty, not as a symbol of moral darkness.

Going Further

The poem imagines a speaker coming upon nature at the moment the sun is going down. Looking at the landscape, there is a moment when day turns to night, and the beauty of the oncoming dark sky fills the viewer with a sense of the sublime, of beauty.

Making Connections

Interestingly, the last line from this passage, "Black like me" is used as the title of a book, by John Howard Griffiths - about a white man who changes the color of his skin to experience what it feels like to be black in the rural South during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. The book is strange because I do not think this kind of experiment would carry over well in today's political terms.

Epilogue

Do you have any poems that you've read that turn the tables on symbolism and imagery? I'd love to hear your examples - you can leave a comment in the box below.

Works Cited

Hughes, Langston. "Dream Variations" The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994.

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Image Source: "Sunset Park" © 2018 Greig Roselli