Op-Ed: The Gordion Knot

Sorry the traffic on this blog has slowed down.  I realize now why I took off last summer (and then some) from blogging.  For instance, last week was crazy.  Painted several rooms for a relative, and it was a lot of work.  And speaking of work, the job keeps me busy.  But for the sake of not sounding "ungrateful," I try not to talk about my employment.

Today is one of those Opinion-Editorial pieces that I write from time to time.  I wish I could write more than I do.  I wish I had the focus and energy to write all the things I think are worth saying, sometimes.  But such is not to be, I guess.  It does make for an interesting perspective on what my life as a college student does for me.  When school is out for a break, I seem to lose some of the qualities I have come to value from my experiences at the university.

Oh, a short interruption to my thoughts, and then I'll proceed to the point of this post.  The good news is, my dog was found.  It is so wonderful to have her home.  Thanks to those who put out good vibes into the universe, and prayer and positive energy, as they may be wont to call it.  We are happy she is home, and will do whatever we can to make sure this problem does not happen again.  It was as though we lost a family member, and one not easily lived without.

An interesting segue there.  The subject of my Op-Ed is family-related.



I was contemplating the nature of relationships, due to some unfortunate strife that has very recently been part of my home-life.  Nothing permanent, I hope.  Well it is, but there isn't much that can be done about it.  Not unless I want to play Alexander the Great that is, and I am not that bold.  Let me explain.

I first must say, I am a fool.  I may be attributing this incorrectly, but I once heard it said that the famous ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said that he was just a fool speaking his mind, and people could take what he said or leave it.  That was the gist of the thought, anyway.  He'd have said it so much better than I could.  But I agree.  I am not a wise man, by any means, and so when I propose what is on my mind, I don't do it so that everyone can say how smart I am (although the praise ain't bad, from time to time), as I know my perspective is limited and I am caught in it as strongly as though I were bound by... well, the Gordion Knot.

I Google Image searched for "Gordion Knot."  This isn't what I pictured myself, but the search didn't come up with a massive ball of twine that has so many loops and loose end and such that you can't make heads or tails of it.  And so this particular sculpture thingy will do for the basis of the point I'm trying to make.  / Source: My China Connection.com

Ok, I'll get on with it.  The back-story.  Alexander the Great is said to have been presented, along his conquesting travels, with a puzzle that had confounded the most clever and skillful.  It was a knot of some sort, tied up so that anyone who tried to undo it would only make the thing worse.  For every bit of the line that was freed from the knot, more seemed to become tangled.  Alexander tired his hand at the knot, but being Alexander, he quickly became frustrated and then did something nobody had done before.  He whipped out his sword and sliced the knot apart.  The impression that I got when I read the story was that he did it in one fell swoop, so to speak.

Alexander the Great cuts the Gordion Knot.  I wonder if anybody in the crowd lost money on betting he could do it.  And how exactly do you define what he did?  He got it undone alright, so "the house" (applying gambling terms) technically lost, but he didn't do it in a traditionally accepted manner, so that is something too. / Source: Wikipedia, Gordion Knot.

Well right this minute, life, and especially the marriage bonds of that life, seems like a Gordion Knot.  You start out with a piece of line that you call your own.  It has its twists and turns, but it is yours to tinker with.  You've spent years getting it like it is.  And then you decide to go and do what might turn out to be a dumb thing.  You decide to invite somebody else to attach lines together.  You decide to get married.

Idiots.  Don't they know most marriages end in divorce these days.  Why don't they just save their money and live together instead.  That way when things get tough, they can just say "oh well" and part friends...  stupid clipart people. When will they ever learn? / Source: Wedding Source.Onsugar.com

You don't appreciate the fact that your section of rope is not entirely your own, nor that when you tie another person into it, and they into your line, that there are lots of other people who are also running stringers of line off of each of your pieces of rope.  Maybe many of those pieces of stringer line are held to your rope by the most tenuous of connections.  Maybe some of those stringer lines are so tied into you or the other person's lines that they are so much a part of the knot that it would be a Herculean effort to remove them.

Yeah, so you're Hercules.  You think you are tough because you could do all those Twelve Tasks?  See if you can handle having a mother-in-law, tough guy. / Source: sahseng11.pbworks.com

But maybe you find after time that there is some part of your partner's knot that you don't want anything to do with.  Maybe it becomes so frustrating to you that you find yourself driven to distraction in your efforts to keep that part of the knot from becoming too entwined into your own piece of rope.  Why don't you want it to be part of your rope?  The reasons don't matter all that much, once you've set about to keep the two separate.  The reasons seem to lose all meaning.  You simply may not want a certain person to be so much a part of your life.

People sometimes say that they come as a package deal.  I suppose I can understand that.  But you can only come as what you are.  You can't expect that there will never be times when somebody will not want some of the mess that your "package" includes.

And so what do you do?  You could do like the majority of Americans seem to be doing these days.  Either A) you don't really tie your rope together properly, but just sort of lay your bundle next to theirs and plan for a quick get away when times go south, or B) you cut the bonds when things seem too complicated to handle anymore.

So here I am, sorta wishing I could pull an Alexander.  Don't get me wrong, I want to keep the person I chose to tie my rope to, but things have gotten so complex that it feels like I'm trying to untie part of the Gordion Knot.  So I can keep what I what and not let a part of it to get tangled up into my own piece of the puzzle.  Because I don't want that part.  I very much don't want it.

I think everybody feels this way to a certain extent in their marriage.  From time to time.  You see something your spouse has as part of their section of the knot you've made together.  Maybe it's an addiction to gambling.  Maybe it's an old boy/girl friend who is too much a part of the package, so to speak.  Maybe it's a penchant for buying expensive imported Austrian-made furniture.  Or maybe it's collecting Happy Meal toys and then using firecrackers to blow them up in the neighbor's driveway.  Who knows?

Whatever is part of your other half's knot, you find yourself being tangled in it, and if it isn't something you are comfortable with, or able to force yourself to be ok with, you may find yourself wondering just how much work it is going to be to keep un-tieing that chunk of the other person's life from your own.  Will it be a yearly thing?  A monthly?  A daily?  A minute by minute battle?  And can you do it?

So here I am folks.  Wishing I could slice off a piece of my significant other's bundle.  At least so that it isn't so much a part of our life together.  But when things are so totally wrapped up that you can't get them undone without it feeling like every loose end equals two tight parts somewhere else on the line, you get to feeling like pulling an Alexander the Great is in order.  And you wish that you could severe the ties that bind selectively.  But you can't.  Not really.

See, the part about the legend of Alexander and the Gordion Knot that you don't hear is that the rope was cut asunder in such a way that it was not useful afterward.  At least that is my impression.  By his hastiness, Alexander proved how decisive he could be.  He didn't prove how he could make things, but how he could un-make them.  Because a rope cut into pieces is only however many parts of a rope that are left over once the cutting is done.  And you may never get as strong a bond again using sliced up pieces.

Fortune sides with him who dares. - Virgil 

I don't want to know what the law is, I want to know who the judge is. - Roy M. Cohn

Stuffed deer heads on walls are bad enough, but it’s worse when they are wearing dark glasses and have streamers in their antlers because then you know they were enjoying themselves at a party when they were shot. - Ellen DeGeneres

The parting comment: 

Source: Lol Snaps.com

Speaking of cutting things...