Not A Week For The Weak

Take heed, fair citizens. This is National Engineers Week! U.S. presidents get a day. Workers get their own day. The nation gets an independence day. Football and turkey get a day. Jesus gets his birthday. Love just had a day. Somebody, who was very smart, recognized that engineers deserve AN ENTIRE WEEK! Engineers are so awesome that they, like an ideal gas, can expand to fill whatever time period they are allotted. I recommend some activities that everybody can enjoy to celebrate the week:

• Hug an engineer. He will not respond, because he has no emotions, but he probably appreciates it. Or at least doesn't resent it.
• Take something apart. Then put it back together...
• ... if it still works, disassemble it again, modify that something to make it perform better, and reassemble. Repeat until it ceases to work.
• Read some instructions, and follow most of them.
• Watch the History Channel
• Learn the binary number system
• Make observations of the things around you that have no significant impact on anything
• Read J.R.R. Tolkien

My favorite part about the official National Engineers Week web site hyperlinked above is the "introduce a girl to engineering" section. I introduced Wifey to engineering, and continue to introduce her to it every day after I return from work, and... it's not winning her over.

This is but a brief sample of the awesomeness that you can enjoy this week. I just feel bad for the people who only get to feel like engineers for a single week out of the year.

Tolkien In The Boys' Room

I'm working on a pseudo-Tolkien trifecta right now, a work several months in progress. I finished reading The Hobbit to Sweetness (yes, she followed most of it, which I can scarcely fathom at age 3), watched the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy with Wifey, and I have now been provoked to re-read The Silmarillion. Of all this, one thing came to mind: In the movie trilogy (and books, for the typographically inclined), why are the only truly interesting characters Faramir and, especially, Boromir?
The writing of Tolkien is engrossing, it really defines the term "epic" for other fiction writers to follow. And so many other writers, particularly fantasy and sci-fi, have attempted to do just that. One thing that Tolkien's writings do not have in abundance, though, is characters cast in gray scale. Absolute, selfless, divine good clashes with almost comically wicked evil. Iron-clad courage pursues yellow-bellied cowardice. Self-sacrifice envelopes self-serving avarice. But characters with true weakness to offset some decent qualities are rare. Some of the prequel writings for the Lord of The Ring trilogy do include great heroes overcome by greed or corrupted by power or blinded by rage. But these are stories told at a great distance of mighty figures and great kingdoms in Paradise Lost (see previous blog), not characters that you get to know intimately or see develop much over time. Very much of the Greek Tragedy vein.
But with Faramir and Boromir, you see the struggle between honor and arrogance, obedience and greed, and those conflicts more than any of the (admittedly awesome) special effects are what make repeated viewings or readings of the trilogy worthwhile. While Faramir struggles with Doing The Right Thing at a key juncture of the story, it never seems likely that he will falter. Once he Sets Things Straight, he gets injured and fades out of relevance. Boromir, though, is portrayed as mighty and valiant, a born leader. He only sets out on the great journey of the story at the behest of his father, who is already corroded away to rottenness. He has endured the suffering of his people for his lifetime while striving endlessly for their protection and freedom. In the ring he sees a resolution to every problem he has ever faced, that his whole land has ever faced. And he finally folds. Neither bravery, nor experience, nor strength can prevent him from cracking and committing foul acts. But even through that, he is able to recover, and repenting from his evil ways he commits a last courageous act of sacrifice, selling his life dearly for his comrades. In the movie (I cannot recall if this is true in the book) he even plays a role with his dying words in developing the main character, Aragorn, whose victory is never really in doubt but at least matures in character during the story.
Who can't get behind characters like that?

Paradise Lost

I have had an idea kicking around my head the past few days. Not anything that coagulated into solid form, but lingering nonetheless.
Why is paradise lost a common belief, or an almost universal longing?
Obviously, the Book of Genesis kicks off and is followed almost immediately by a personal foul on the only two people on the planet. It is certainly not just a biblical theme, though. J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth was full of longing for lost days and great heroes who had fallen in the battle with evil, and majestic cities that no longer stand and who's beauty will never be matched. Tolkien was biblically influenced, but I don't know that we can say the same for Rush. The old rock band wrote the 2112 Overture, which describes at length a single man trying to restore life to the wonder of old days by, naturally, the means of a 'prehistoric' guitar.
I know that, for my own part, I was a little saddened to see that the McDonald's restaurant in my hometown was remodeled. I have no great love for the place, but it's where I worked my first job, and now I can never be in that place with the same atmosphere, whatever it's worth. Going back to the house where you grew up and seeing another family's car parked in the driveway, or other kids playing in the yard, can be downright jarring. It seems as though the plodding of time is acceptable as long as we can restore our present world to a past moment, thus regaining it. Thus, that memory, that time is lost but for the frail thread of our own mind.
Of course, The Ancients who occupied Paradise Lost where also of greater might than can be found today. The Good were great and the Bad were wicked beyond match. I often wonder if the hero worship portion of this phenomenon may even go back to our childhoods. Your father's strength and wisdom were incredible until you became an adolescent, and the devoted selflessness of a mother sets the foundation for your view of love and tenderness. How can anybody you encounter as an adult ever match these outsize traits. Only now as my own family grows can I see any sort of bonds of that magnitude emerging in the all-consuming, hyperbolic EVERYTHING of children and the understated love and care of Wifey.
This entry feels rushed, because it really needs to be about twice as lengthy, but it's time to cut out.