Aporia

This term -- in its purest form -- reflects a lack of opening, or couched differently, a lack of opportunity. Rhetorically, it is about doubt, uncertainty, contradiction, paradox, the unsolvable conundrum. Trickster tales are full of the like, and how to get out of them, or at least make peace with their presence. When confronted with fire at both ends of a hole, trickster digs a new passageway. When surrounded by enemies, s/he diverts the one and outwits the other. Let us never forget that to be a trickster is to be clever and to survive, whatever it takes. There is always a way. Vive Le Trickster!

RE: Politicians

Did I mention the self-interested, consummate survivor angle?

Politician Tricksters.... well duh!

This observation is not drawn, as you might guess, from the current presidential campaign atmosphere. I'm sure there are more eloquent things that could be said on that count than what I aim to pursue here, but for now I will focus on a case study I've been working on for my leadership class. This case study involves a governor, and to be tricksterly and vague myself, I will not divulge the state. Suffice it to say that he kept jumping back and forth on a key political issue, specifically that of "smart growth" to such a degree that nobody trusted him anymore to do the right thing, and he was eventually (most likely, although the case study did not specify this) run out of office for it. I could not help thinking of coyote outwitting himself and getting caught in his own trap.

The thing is, we've come to expect this of politicians. To use the terms "politician" and "slippery" in the same sentence is not uncommon. Are they seductive manipulators? Are they variable, multifaceted, polytropic creatures? Are they likely to overindulge their appetites? In all but the rarest of exceptions, the answer is yes, yes, yes. I have yet to find clear evidence of gender variability in political circles on the whole, but anecdotal accounts of certain texting shennanigans amongst certain legislators and thoughts of J. Edgar Hoover in pink fuzzy slippers pop into my mind. Was Hoover really a politician, though? And how do we know that Warren G. Harding, stud that he was, didn't enjoy his alone time at the White House in lacey undies? Can we really know?

On Moms as Tricksters

I like to think of mothers as tricksters. My friend Wayne - who studied tricksters with me - once spoke of mothers as "orchestrators of their children's lives." Wayne and I had another class together in rhetoric, in which I recall the subject of rhetorical situations coming up. I mentioned that I thought motherhood was a rhetorical situation. I think some people thought this was pretty peculiar, but I had an interesting conversation with another classmate later about how any kind of person-hood might be considered a rhetorical situation, and parenthood in particular. I don't know that I'm right, it's just something to ponder.

Isn't this picture funny? Is she preparing her child for the great unknown? Is she sending him out to learn how to swim? Is she gonna walk off any second? Is she reassuring him, or telling him the ocean is a bad, bad place and you should never go in it unless there are CIA operatives chasing you with guns? I wonder what the bird is thinking.

I also keep thinking (and laughing at myself) about how I, as a mother, don't want to be an "orchestrator," don't want to be "She Who Hates to be Contradicted," which is funny because in saying as much, I am refusing the be contradicted about it. It's kind of like the "I am NOT in denial!" t-shirts. The problem is, when you are a mother, you are constantly needing to bridge the gap, be the mediator, between what you think the world will expect of your child, what you expect of your child, what you know your child expects of him/herself, what your spouse expects, etc. etc. This makes for an inherently contradictory situation, pretty much day in and day out. You also have to mediate between trying to teach your child optimism, while knowing that there is a lot of reason to be very pessimistic about life. One of the most tricksterly aspects about being a mother is when you know (societal expectations, shame culture, yada yada) that your kid shouldn't do a certain thing, but when they do it, you are totally laughing at them. My husband has been huffy with me more than once when he has been trying to give my son (or daughter) a sober talking-to, and I'm giggling behind my hand. Sometimes my kids are just a hoot, and sometimes it's when they are being very "naughty." Maybe I'm a wierd mom that way. I hope it's a good thing.

And now for a somewhat ironic anecdote: one day I was listening to some accoustic jazz music, and my daughter kept asking me what that squeaking noise was. It took me a few minutes to realize that it was the sound the guitarist makes when he slides his fingers down the frets abruptly. To me, it was a part of the music, but to her it was noise. This was a peculiar inversion of the John Cage scenario described by Hyde, and the perceptions of music versus noise. I just found it particularly interesting because the child (my daughter) was being the prescriptive one.