2006-03-27

Defintion refined

A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.

~Nikolas Kazantzakis

The week has been crazy. My folks are in town, which explains the lack of update action. This does not in any way imply a lack of action in general, as hanging with my folks tends to be disproportionately nonconformal (and even criminal), despite their outwardly calm and ordered appearance.

When they visit I get a lesson in the true meaning of certain words. This always happens when they're here. For example, one day we became patrons of a local public facility. Now, one might reasonably suppose the word 'patron' to mean something like 'user' or 'customer'. Maybe even 'benefactor'. Turns out its real meaning is closer in definition to 'tresspasser' or 'thief', words of that ilk. The defining action: breaking into the petting zoo at Stanley Park. An employee quickly accosts us. He looks confused. Eventually, he comes up with, 'Ummm, excuse me? We're actually closed.' My Dad looks around for a while and says, 'I know,' and nods knowingly, as if to reassure said employee. And then there is silence. And you can't really argue with that, can you? I mean, what is the employee supposed to say next? 'Oh, ok, just so long as you are actually aware that you unlawfully gained entrance into a closed facility. Just wanted to check and make sure. But you seem to know that, so that's great. I'll just go back to whatever I was doing before you folks broke in.'

The silence stalemate continued for some time, until at some point a few more tourists came in through the door my Dad proved wasn't locked. (So maybe 'break in' isn't the right term here. Just exploratory bargaining? Pah! A victimless crime.) They had seen us through the fence of course, the fence being not a fence in the classic sense, as in, a boundary that keeps certain things in or out, but rather the imaginary (and increasingly irrelevant, in my father's eyes at least) demarcation between the open part of the park and the stuff inside, labelled 'closed'. Again, a word I thought I knew inside and out had been given new meaning to me.

'Ummm, thanks for coming in, really, thanks for the enthusiasm, but we're just not open on the weekend.'

This he chose to ignore. I gestured that this man with white hair was not associated with me and could probably not understand most of what we were saying to him anyway, but that we should probably treat him with caution, like a bear at a campsite, nosing for food. This gesture kind of looked like a shrug with palms open, hands moving sideways a bit, back and forth, while easing away from the big bear.

'I guess we should go,' my Dad said eventually. 'Come on Alexander. Let's go and feed some raccoons.'

And this is the great thing about my Dad: he treats the world as if, at any moment, you really can do anything you like. Closed is not a state of business, it's a suggestion, perhaps even a provocation. A fence is but an imaginary boundary, easily overcome by exploratory actioning at certain designated portals, or in the case of a business, points of sale.

Closed is a state of mind, and his is anything but. Or maybe his mind is closed, and it's just closed to the idea that any of society's rules actually apply to him. It's closed to ideas that bore him, like paying attention to signs or listening to police. This is what I love about the man, this is what makes him great. I hope to one day cast as large a shadow as this bear who wanders idly through town, ignoring all of our shouting and clapping.

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