“What would it be like if whatever we were supposed to be doing, we didn’t really do?”
—KATIE EPSTEIN, age five, Brooklyn, New York
She is asked to elaborate on this by her mother.
“I mean, if when we were supposed to go to lunch we went to lunch, but instead of eating we just sat and stared at each other? And if we went to school, but instead of learning we all just sat and stared at the teacher, and she stared back? What if we went to my ballet recital next month, and all got dressed up in our tutus, and then just stood there and stared at the audience, and they stared back, and when it was all over the audience clapped and we curtsied and left?”
HER MOTHER: “Wow, Katie. That…would be really weird!”
David Miller, secretary, Existentialist Society, Melbourne, Australia:
“It would be a far simpler matter if we were being asked, ‘What if there was no communication?’ Or even the more drastic ‘What if there was no action?’ However, in two of these scenarios, the Performance and the Lesson, although there is no verbal communication, there is, in the Performance, a type of nonverbal communication in the form of ‘clapping.’ Also, in the two scenarios there is much ‘staring’ at each other by both sides. Is this communication? It could be argued that—yes it is. On the other hand, staring could be seen as a form of contemplation, and not necessarily communication.
“There is certainly loads of activity implied in both scenarios—getting out of bed, getting dressed and having breakfast, for starters. Assembling in the auditorium in one scene, and in the classroom in the other. The staring. The leaving of the auditorium and the classroom. Going home, etc., etc.
“The question is almost, ‘What if we stopped everything in the middle?’ If we stopped in the middle, then others might also stop what they are doing in the middle. We rely on others completing what they have commenced. If they stopped in the middle, it could be disastrous. Imagine. Planes would fall from the sky. Soup would burn on the stove. Financial markets would fail. Cities would be plunged into darkness. So we all take on the mutual obligation to complete what we have started. It is called cooperation.
“All my musings have so muddied the waters and befuddled my brain that I no longer know what it is that I’m being asked.”
“What else?”
—CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, aged four to eleven, Montevallo, Alabama, whenever relatives would bring him gifts
Bhante H. Kondanna, abbot, Staten Island Buddhist Vihara:
“Many experience the feeling of never having enough. We often do not view this as a negative experience, as in the case of not having enough money, love, clothes or myriad other possessions. We never seem to be satisfied; we always need more to enable us to reach that elusive point of total satisfaction.
“We must be mindful that if this desire for more becomes an obsession, then it will be a hindrance rather than a helper. If we are obsessed with our desire for more, whether it be for material things or even spiritual ones, we may lose sight of our true goal in the process. Sometimes, we can be so caught up in seeing what we don’t have, that we don’t see what we do have. Remember that we always have enough if we are but willing to accept what is. Possibly there is only one apple in the fruit basket, and some part of us may feel that one is not enough. Yet with a higher perspective, we can see that one apple is all we need at the moment, that one is enough and that when we require more, more will indeed be available.
“Because the unwholesome tendencies spring from seeds buried deep in the bottom-most strata of the mind, to eradicate these sources of affliction and nurture the growth of the liberating vision of reality, the Buddha presents his teaching in the form of a gradual training. It does not burst into completeness at a stroke, but like a tree or any other living organism, it unfolds organically. If we follow through the comparison of the Buddhist discipline to a tree, virtue would be the roots, for it is virtue that gives grounding to our spiritual endeavors just as the roots give grounding to a tree. Hence for a proper spiritual life to flourish, the foundation must be laid in childhood. It is essential at the outset to nourish the proper roots, otherwise the result will be frustration, disillusionment and perhaps even danger.
“Lord Buddha says in the Dhammapada:
When a person lives carelessly and unmindfully,
his desire grows like a creeping vine.
He runs now here; and now there,
as if looking for fruit: a monkey in the forest.
If this sticky, unrefined desire
overcomes you in the world,
your sorrows grow like wild grass
after rain.
If, in the world, you overcome
this unrefined desire, hard to escape,
sorrows roll off you,
like water beads off a lotus.
NOTES ON SOURCES
Questions not from Dean came from the children of friends, acquaintances, colleagues and strangers, who submitted them to www.fatherknowslessbook.com. Some children who asked have since grown up. Answers were collected on the telephone, via e-mail or in person; some were edited for grammar, length and continuity, always with the answerer’s full knowledge. Beyond that, answers are the words of those who participated, as are any opinions expressed. The answers from Mark H. Anders, Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Burke, Salvatore J. Cassano, Dr. Sudhir Diwan, Martha Hiatt, James Lipton, Mark A. Norell, Dr. Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn and Iris Weinshall appeared in my story in The New York Times on January 26, 2006.
In the essays, some names have been changed to protect the potentially embarrassed. Dinosaur information came from The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert T. Bakker (William Morrow and Company, 1986); Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over T-Rex Ever Found by Steve Fiffer (W. H. Freeman and Company, 2000); and Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (Parragon, 2002). Information about Pluto, and its diminished status, came from Dennis Overbye’s fine reporting in the Times. Information about Estes rockets was provided by the Estes Company. All other sources are noted in the text.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All books are collaborations, but this one is more than most. Thank you first to all the parents who remembered their children’s questions and shared them, to all the children who asked them and to everyone who answered, from Yoko Ono to John Timoney to Liesl Schernthanner at the bottom of the world. Thank you to my agent, Jay Mandel, who worked the phones, and to my editor, Dan Conaway, who answered the call even though I stood him up for lunch. Thank you to Dr. Sudhir Diwan, Gianine Rosenblum, Peter Bogdanovich and Mark A. Norell for taking the time to explain, and to Anthony Petrosino, Mike Virk, Lauren Rubin and William Crawford, who read and advised. Thank you to all the reporters at The New York Times who helped me find answer people, especially Fernanda Santos, who interviewed Carlinhos de Jesus, samba dancer and choreographer, and translated his words from the Portuguese; and to my colleagues, past and present, on the Metropolitan Desk, especially Anne Cronin, who was so enthusiastic about the original story; Susan Edgerley, who is so enthusiastic about everything; Kyle Massey, who wrote the headline; and Joe Sexton, my friend and mentor, who gave me my dream job. Thank you to my parents, Bessie Jamieson and Walter Jamieson, Jr., who always listened and always did their best; to my stepparents, Kathy Jamieson, Tom Boyle and Robert M. Kulicke, who helped fill in the blanks, and to my sister, Lindsay Gallagher, my co-witness to history. And to my mother-in-law, Irene Stapinski, who makes the forties sound like so much fun.
Finally, thank you to my daughter, Paulina, who taught me to type with one hand, and to my son, Dean, whose truly singular view of the world changed mine. And most of all, to my wife, Helene, who has done so much to give the little ones great beginnings, childhoods of wonder and excitement, and who taught me that if you write what you really want, and you write the truth, only good will come of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendell Jamieson is city editor of The New York Times. He grew up in Brooklyn and lives there still, with his wife
, Helene Stapinski, and their children, Dean and Paulina.
Father Knows Less Or: Can I Cook My Sister? Page 21