Skip the step between

Dear diary,

Here’s the greatest problem facing our age: Everyone loves grandparents, but everyone hates regular parents. So if we could figure out a way to get to be grandparents without having to go thru the regular-parent stage, life would be solved.

Now, if you’re one of those lucky kids who was raised by your grandparents, you might say to me: “But I already solved life’s problems because I grew up in my grandma’s house in Duluth.” But I say unto you:

“No, you are wrong — for your parents still exist, even if they are in Stillwater, in prison: they can break out at any moment and come bother you. It’s not like they don’t know how to hitch a ride and tell the driver ‘Take me to the address that I have written on this manila index-card’.”

My point is that you should have figured out how to get born in a fashion that ONLY requires your grandparents to exist, thus there would be no further beings biologically connecting you to them but a non-human void. Then you would be living the dream.

“But” you might say, “doesn’t adoption count? Cuz I was adopted by these grandparents who raised me — we lack any biological connection — I have no known parents of my own; I was a foundling; I spent my infancy in the forest, where I simply appeared one day: I am therefore parentless.”

“But how do you know that you weren’t abandoned by human parents,” I argue. “Even if you were raised by wolves instead of normal citizens of Duluth, why would you believe the tales of your miraculous origin that you were taught by those wolves who raised you?”

At this point, I win the argument, because you and I simultaneously realize the great difference between miracle and mystery. Your birth was mysterious, but not necessarily miraculous. There’s probably a reasonable chain of events that would explain the circumstances of your strange upbringing. For instance: some maidservant most likely awoke early in the morning and climbed up a mountaintop to pray, during which act she became impregnated and bore a child to Father Zeus — presumably this conception was in answer to her prayer: for the chances are that she was praying for her womb to be opened; since the LORD had closed up all the wombs of her household (Genesis 20:18) — straightway then she abandoned her infant, as promised, and the babe was discovered by one of the local wolf-herders:

“Look there, a newborn is lying upon the ground,” exclaims the wolf-herder to himself, aloud.

And that child was you. So that explains why you assume that your folks do not exist, but they are really even more abundant than the usual number of physical begetters that most human beings are inflicted with: for, instead of two parents you have three: You are the result of the carnal exertions one true hero (the wolf man), one demiurge (GOD), plus a virgin who serves in the harem of the king of Thebes.

So the point is that things are better at a slight remove. One hop away from one’s biological progenitors equals repose. Grandparents are the sweet spot. Great-grandparents are good, too; although it’s harder to relate to them, because they were presumably involved in all sorts of bad stuff — I mean, their age produced the evils of Naziism & Fascism; not to mention, they were the main beneficiaries of chattel slavery.

But if you stray too far away from your own family line, out past the great-great-grandparents, you end up in the territory of the foreigner. The other. The alien. In short: the ENEMY.

So don’t get carried away. Feel free to dishonor your parents, and always cling tight to your grandparents. But even going one step beyond grandparents is risky. – Just think about it: your great-grandparents were the parents of your grandparents. Could anyone imagine anything eviller?

But I suppose if my own great-grandpa didn’t invent the atomic bomb, then someone else’s great-grandpa would have done so. Therefore all the cruelty of the world is not only justified but forgiven. Jesus hugs you while you’re sinning.

And this whole system of values that I’m proposing to unearth, out here in the woods today, is based on a simple principle:

One’s parents are the first authorities that one meets in this world. When one is too inexperienced to feed oneself, one’s parents feed one; likewise do they clothe & shelter one. So one’s basic needs are met by one’s parents, until one reaches the age of maturity: How could one not end up resenting such an affront? One’s parents are proof that one was once the opposite of a rugged individualist.

§

I like war buddies, tho. When you’re fighting a war, you really make good friends. Not with those who you’re trying to kill, of course; I’m talking about your fellow soldiers — the ones who are offering you friendly fire. I myself was named after my dad’s war buddy: Bryan Parrot. That’s no joke: his last name really was Parrot, just like the bird. And his name was spelled with a “Y”, for reasons unknown. And my dad’s name was Doug. So what I’m saying is that Doug R. and Bryan P. served in the U.S. army together: they fought side-by-side and were the cause of boundless carnage. — Then, when I myself was born, my dad plagiarized his war buddy’s name, less-popular spelling and all, and stamped the brand upon my hide. That’s why, to this day, I claim that I was christened after the orator William Jennings Bryan. (Around the turn of the century, a few times, in the elections surrounding the year 1900, Bryan campaigned for U.S. president: he was a fierce opponent of American imperialism. I even share his birthday.)

Now, when you’re bivouacking from town to town committing war crimes every summer, sometimes you hit a lag where you end up having to wait for further marching orders, and there’s nothing to do in the meantime: nothing to occupy your mind — so you slump down in a field with your fellow mercenaries and etch some lines into the dirt on the ground, so that you can play the game Tic-tac-toe, just to pass the time. – Soon you become so engrossed in this great struggle, with its depths of strategy, that you forget you’re supposed to be killing people and breaking things:

This is the state of affairs that led to the creation of our present universe. Between atrocities, Energy Itself began to navel-gaze. And right now it’s lost in its reverie. But it’ll probably awake real soon.