The Weekend Eudemon

Ah, the blessed weekend. It's the last blast for the Scheske kids before school starts on Monday.

To celebrate the end of the summer, we took the kids swimming and out to dinner last night. We then came back and watched the movie, Tremors. Eric bought the VHS last week for $3.00 (if you're not aware of it, you can get great deals on used VHS tapes on the Internet right now; it seems like everyone is clearing out their stocks).

Eric saw the movie with friends during law school and remembered it as a clean movie. It's amazing what perspective can do. To a 23-year-old drinking beer with friends and watching the movie in a dorm-like setting, it's a very clean movie. But for a bunch of kids? There's a lot of foul language, sexual humor, and the tremor creatures pretty scary looking. His wife looked at him a couple of times during the movies with raised eyebrows (“this is a kids movie?”). Eric just kinda shrugged his shoulders and reminded the kids, “Um, you know, um. That's not really an appropriate thing to say.”

In any event, the kids enjoyed the extra attention as their summer winds down.

Eric Scheske is blessed with children who have had a good school experience. Of the four children in school, three of them have mixed emotions about going back to school. They dread the loss of summer freedom, but they're looking forward to school. Even Eric's eldest, Alex, who is leaving his cherished parochial school and headed for the mosh pit known as the public middle school is looking forward to it.

After the parochial school's 7th and 8th grade shut down due to lack of serious Catholics who could afford the $1,200 per year tuition, Eric and his wife decided to send Alex to the middle school, even though they have grave concerns about the public schools. They fall into that large class of persons who justifiably distrust public schools in general but tend to think they're own public schools are pretty good. Perhaps they're naïve, but Eric is friends or acquainted with the system superintendent, a majority of the school board, and many of the teachers. He knows them first-hand to be good people, so we're hopeful. If the mosh pit is, indeed, a mosh pit, we'll pull Alex out and home school him. He is by nature a book worm, so it wouldn't be difficult.

Malcolm's Messages (What's This?)
And he stood on the bench, like he had seen others do in that public place in the Ante-Basement Era.

He had not spoken in years.

"I am Malcolm," he said, falteringly, his voice sounding strange to him. Then in a louder and more commanding voice he continued. "Yes, I am Malcolm. Some call me the Mole Man, some call me Mad Man, some call me Mister. I prefer Malcolm."

He paused to look around. Two small groups of students near him stopped talking and turned to watch. A few students and one faculty member stopped their quick paces to listen. The other five thousand kept walking and talking, ignoring Malcolm, for he spoke without fee.

He smiled sincerely at everyone, especially the five thousand. One of the students who had stopped walking said, with sarcasm but also friendliness, "Hello Malcolm."

"Hello to you," Malcolm spoke to the young man. "Have you a name, or may I call you Handsome Dan, for your are dressed handsomely."

The crowd chuckled. The young man could see Malcolm was sincere, so his words, phony from any other mouth, didn't offend. "Sure, call me Handsome Dan," said the young man, good-naturedly. He looked at Malcolm, slightly puzzled but more amused.

"Handsome Dan and others here assembled," Malcolm continued, arms raised up. "I come before you to take from you that which is most important: Your time. I will hold you here for ten years. Failing that, I demand an hour of your time and if not that, just twelve minutes.

"A few of you are leaving. Twelve minutes is too long? I believe it. Time is precious. It is the most precious thing, no? I demand just twelve minutes in a busy sphere like this, and my listeners are halved. For we are all busy. Does not everyone consider himself busy, thus rendering time so rare and desired?"

He paused. Now all faces were turned to him, noses lapping against his speaking stone.

"And yet, if time is so precious, then what does that say of its opposite: timelessness? If time is precious, then the timeless is unimportant, mere sludge. That strikes me as wrong.

"But time is important. And precious. Because everyone has so little of it. The man with time is a wealthy man. Indeed, he might be the wealthiest man. For all people in our country are wealthy as far as material things are concerned, at least when measured against stuff possession in the olden days or against stuff possession in the poor lands across the sea. Many people even have money, that abstraction that buys the concrete. And many people have lots and lots of money. But few people have time, that commodity craved more than anything else."

His voice was strong and inviting; impressive, like muscles on a powerful man. Others were gathering to listen. There may have been fifty thousand assembled at that point, perhaps a million. All beautiful, though many angry and sad and sinful.

"Malcolm, it's not time or money," someone yelled from the Face Ocean. "It's sex. That's the most important thing." The waves laughed.

"Ah yes," Malcolm responded with mock lasciviousness, for even a hermit-especially a hermit-knows how to play the crowd. "Sex. I had sex once." The waves chuckled. "It lasted only a few moments and has lasted for years. Yes, sex is good, but you must have time for it first. Time is always first in a world that longs for sex and other such goods, for without time, no other goods can come." The joker from the Face Ocean half-smiled, looked at his companions and shrugged as if to say, "the man has a point."

Malcolm continued. "Indeed, is not that what you are doing here? Giving up four or more years of your time so you can obtain other goods? In particular, money? That's the power key that opens the door to many more things, like houses and cars and boats and (always lurking there in the back of the success monger's mind) sex with beautiful women or lots of women? But before you get the money, first you must give time. Always time."

Many in the crowd were genuinely impressed. A few strolled to the nearest grassy spot and sat down. "This is pretty cool," a boy quietly said to his make-believe wife; she nodded, looking at Malcolm with wonder. They were hearing truth, and it was good, and it was beautiful. They did not believe in such things, but their souls could not resist, even though they had copulated the night before.

"Yes, it is cool," Malcolm said, looking at him. The boy was startled. "Do not be startled, Mr. Rufus," he said to the boy kindly. "When one lives in silence, one comes to hear all."

The boy's name wasn't Rufus, but he smiled at the salutation, for it warmed him.

Malcolm turned back to the Ocean. "And yet, time is the most precious thing. So why give it up for money?"

He paused. The waves paused.

"It is foolhardy, obviously. It is as obvious as a forest of trees.

"And yet, is it? For maybe behind the money we hope to secure by giving up time at this institution of learning, there is something else. Behind all the money lust, perhaps something better beckons? Maybe something better than money, maybe something money cannot buy.

"Behind all these efforts, the efforts that start with time, lies the pursuit of time. Yes, it is ironic. Money can buy time. It can buy what the Wise Men have called 'leisure.' Leisure is that which all people desire: time without worry or beckoning; floods of time: time to do whatever you want. So much time that you lose track of time. In leisure, lies the timeless. So you see, timelessness is not mere sludge. It is one of the highest things.

"Some of you, I fear, have mortgaged your time, in order to create time, to make money in time, in order to get time." He said it rapidly, dizzying himself, not sure exactly what he said, but confident it was true.

Then he continued, again speaking quickly, "Borrowing lots of money to create the time to study so you can get money to pay the money lenders yet still have enough time to get the money to buy comforts and fun, and still be able to save enough to get, finally, leisure."

He looked around, then spoke more slowly, "I know why you do it. I do not blame you. I only point to the irony and wonder if there might be a better way. If leisure is so good--and it is--ought we to go without it for most of our lives? Ought we to be without it during the prime of our lives, as so many of you will be after you leave this fine institution?"

He paused for a moment, having lost his thought, then continued as if half-dreaming:

"I know a man who washes windows. He is good at it. He has a wife and children and they live in a small house beside a small garden. He is a philosopher. He is good at it. So he is happy.

"I will be back in a few moments," he said, then got off his speaking stone and walked dazedly through the crowd, gently shook a few hands, and went home and ate half-a-loaf of bread, then slept.