A friend of mine called me up this afternoon and said “I’ve got an apology to make.” I was surprised, because I couldn’t remember anything he’d said or done recently which called for an apology, not even a little bit.
“For what?,” I asked. He started in with a chess analogy. He loves chess analogies. For Bill, chess is an analogy of life and the other way around. “You know how in chess the move you make isn’t always the best move, because if you’d thought about it longer you could have made a better move?” he asked. “Well, conversation is like that.”
The thing is, in a conversation with my son, he said something and then thought about it later and figured he should have said something different, in his role as friendly adult, trying to shape the young lad’s future psychology.
Chess is Like Life
I brushed off his concerns. Really, when you talk to a child, you can no more guard every word you say than you can with an adult. Also, you have to realize (my friend is a single man with no children) that when you become a parent, every single thing you ever swore that you would never do or say with children goes right out the window. For instance, I always said I would never spank my kids. Swedes have the right idea, I thought.
I remember the day. Sam was about two, and we were walking along Vinohradska. I was talking with my wife, just with half an eye on the toddler. He started to step into the street by himself. I smacked his butt so hard I’ll never forget it. (He was two – he probably forgot it within ten minutes. Kids can amaze you sometimes with their precociousness and intelligence, but they have the long term memory of a fish) Did I feel guilty about it? Not even a bit. It felt natural and right. There’s another piece of unnecessary idealism I can chuck, I thought.
I’d like to revisit the chess analogy, though. Yes, there are always moves we wish we’d made and might have, given enough time. As far as conversation is concerned, that’s why I like facebook. It’s almost like a real conversation but you can take a little more time and actually think about what you want to say. Theoretically, conversations on facebook should be more intelligent than conversations in real life. They really should.
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