Blame

by Penrod

Motto: “The real game is the game you are in”

Who is to blame? What do we need to blame? Why?

I subscribe to the “two O’s” policy: Don’t take offense and don’t obligate. That’s the easiest way for me. Works best for getting along in life as far as I can see. My motive is not moral. The strategy of the two O’s clearly does partake of wisdom and self-interest. As to myself, I operate under and often against strong tendencies to sloth and impatience. Who is to blame for my condition? Is there something to blame? Someone to blame? My parents? Others?

Maybe there is a connection between blame and understanding. Blame certainly, in my experience, gets the thoughts going. It stokes reason. Promotes thinking. Given these benefits, it is easy to understand why I or anyone assigns blame. However, blaming is only good as a starter, a starter for analysis and conversation. It doesn’t have a life-giving result. It is not where the fun is. My blaming makes me a victim.

I think it is possible to stoke fires for understanding through better ways than blame. Like maybe a question when puzzled or uncertain or when wanting to praise someone or something. To approach understanding requires an open mind and avoiding a rush to judgment, including self-judgment. Hume said thinking is a calmer passion meaning that, although calmer, it is a passion and includes desire and is an urge. We live by our passions, by our wants, our feelings, and desires. Nothing wrong with that. That’s where the juice is. Calming down by thinking helps; doing so is essential, it seems to me, for guiding us to the good.

Is there a living example to open up this subject? Should we begin with our good fortune? Should we begin with a problem or pain or dissatisfaction or anger and the like? Both could be fruitful. Can I stay alert to my urge to justify myself? To judge others? How about starting with fun. Why do I have so much fun? Why have I had so much fun? Why do you? Have you had fun?

At the outset, let’s agree that fun is fun and as such it is not comparable between persons. Fun can be fostered by victory, but victory is not required nor is it a guarantee of fun. For example, a 10-year-old kid and a friend or two playing baseball on a summer day, out hitting and catching balls are having as much fun — in spite of my warning to avoid comparing — maybe even more fun than Mickey Mantle or Jackie Robinson playing in the World Series. Fun is fun and it describes a verb. So, the question assumes that fun is personal and particular. There is no such thing as fun in general. Fun usually arises from an activity, from being lucky, and from remembering.

When Rube and Shorty and I got our gloves, bat, and ball, and jumped on our bikes and headed for the ballpark on a warm summer afternoon, high spirits arose. We anticipated hitting the ball on the nose, running hard to catch a fly ball, even hitting it over the fence and having to fetch it — unless luck provided us with a passerby to toss it back over the fence.

What fun! Fun was enhanced by overflowing gratitude. It was not as if we were obligated to be grateful. Gratitude arose — arises spontaneously. We would name our gratitude, it being a pleasure to do so. “Aren’t we lucky to be here? To have free time to do what we want? The health to play? To be friends? This field to play on? Good feeling flooded our chests. We knew that not everyone was as lucky as we were. We loved our town, our coaches and teachers, we were beneficiaries of the work of so many who were creating and maintaining civil society.

Gratitude can lead to pride. The pride we felt about Rainy Lake, Bronko Nagurski, the largest pulp wood piles in the world.

[pause, calm down]

Perhaps another take on fun and gratitude — add satisfaction — is the Golden Mean. There is a proper level of pride, excess pride does not aim at the good. Remember, we are not talking morality, we’re exploring fun and understanding that satisfies us and stuff that is really good.

Another huge factor in fun and in understanding is our limits starting with our bodies, and the physical earth and our particular place in it. Imagine a basketball game in which you are like superman. You can do what you want, make every basket, stop every shot, jump out of the gym. Are you having fun? Is anyone else still playing?

That brings us back to comparison. It is not wise. There is always someone bigger, someone smaller, someone smarter, someone luckier. Why spoil your fun?

Aren’t we lucky?