A Long And Potentially Uninteresting Episode In Ethics, Powell Style

An acquaintance of mine died recently. I say acquaintance because we weren't exactly friends anymore; we weren't on a first name basis and I wouldn't have known how to contact him, but if we saw each other on the street, we'd be happy to catch up a while. He was a great guy, both smart and funny, and he was quite young. I don't know how he died, just that he died. Healthy, young men don't just keel over, so I've been making lots of wild assumptions and, in the process, getting myself very worked up over this nightmareish demise that I've concocted.

I'm not much on being a role model. I get along with kids, I think, because I never, ever try to impart any knowledge or wisdom. I go the other way entirely, and try to share with them as much blabbering stupidity as possible. I figure they're surrounded most of the time by adults trying to do the exact opposite, so they probably enjoy the change of pace. I really think this works. As I mention from time to time here, I'm involved in the Central Texas Big Brother Little Brother program and I get along smashingly with my Little Brother just because of this. Less talk about isosceles triangles, more talk about Family Guy and Dance Dance Revolution: this is the Powell Parenting Principle.

Like I said, the recent death of my friend troubled me. It troubled me enough that I began to wonder, "Should I temporarily eschew the Powell Parenting Principle to impart a lesson on the fragility of life?" I felt obligated to share this with my Little Brother, but I didn't know how. It's hard to transition from a let's-see-who-can-eat-the-most-cupcakes contest to a sober discussion on the finality of death. I brainstormed.

What if I "accidentally" ran over a squirrel while he was in the car, and then attempted to explain what happened to the squirrel?
What if I showed him that scene in Terminator 2 when they lower Arnold into the molten steel?
What if I took him to a taxidermist and showed him a stuffed perch?

All of these were bad ideas, and that's a shame because I had something to tell him. I wanted to say, "The world is chock-full of mysterious and fascinating things. Some of these things will interest you, and you'll want to experiment with them; everyone is curious and everyone does it. The thing is, there are boundaries. Whatever you do, you have to recognize that boundary and stop when you reach it. If you don't think you can do that, find someone who can and ask them to help."

I realize now that such a speech would give him carte blanche to go out and harrass prostitutes or chunk whiskey bottles at wild animals, as long as he took neither to a dangerous level. It is a good thing I didn't say any of that.

I hung out with the Little Brother yesterday, and I wanted, for one, to be wise. I looked for the opening, but I just couldn't find a spot in which I felt comfortable pontificating like that. I mean, X Men 3 offered some pretty weighty moral dilemmas of its own, he certainly didn't need me adding anything after that.

On the way home, I silently berated myself. There I was, with perhaps the one bit of adult wisdom I will ever come across, and I couldn't find the way to share it. As we approached his house, I decided that I'd just write it all down, tie it to a brick, and throw it through his window later that night. That ought to get his attention. Thankfully, before I could begin to put this plan into action, he started talking.

He said, "I like your car." Perhaps he had more to say than that, I'm not sure. I did know that maturity was tugging at my shirt sleeve, and I had to speak up.

Allowing my 25+ years of experience to guide me, I said, "Yeah, it's a good car. It's just a car, though. If someone stole it or I wrecked it, I could save more money and get another car. You can't do that with everything, though." I began to say, "You know, like a taco." Luckily, before I opened my mouth, I remembered that a taco WAS INDEED something you could replace. I immediately formulated a better example. "You know, your friends, your family, yourself. You can't buy those things."

True, it was the sound-bite version of what I wanted to say, but I was astonished I made it through without injecting any profanity or launched into a diatribe on Yoda. It was a rare moment of clarity, and I needed that to count. "Does that make sense?" I asked him. He nodded. In all likelihood, he was nodding to get me to shut up. I have no problems with that; roughly 11,000 more of these moments, and I may know what I'm talking about. Sometimes, you've got to give it a shot.

Posted by Cody at June 1, 2006 6:24 PM