Does it make a difference to those of us in life's Last Quarter whether Mr. Trump or Sen.-Sec'y Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders is elected to the Presidency of the United States? And if so, why does it? The Narcissistic King of France ... did he have it right that "apres moi la deluge" ... that there really is nothing that follows me ... Ah! And, if so, what follows from that conclusion? What IS the problem with a little pathological narcissism from one candidate or another? It was during one of the previous elections that someone -- I think quite smartly -- noted that anyone who imagines they are fit to lead the Free World is arguably too narcissistic to do so.
So, what possible difference does it make? After all, a goodly percentage of us Fourth Quarter folk will be dead before the next 8 years pass by? What difference can it possibly make whether healthcare is a right or a commodity? What's the big deal if the oceans come ten miles inland? The World did just fine (Well, not!) when everybody believed in the 6-Day story of Creation and Darwin's theory of the adaptive survival of the fittest hasn't brought peace to the world. What difference can it make whether Science plays any role in public policy or if the Earth remains habitable? Whether our Great-Grandchildren can still play outside and breathe? We won't be there or, at any rate, won't be around for long. As Isaiah (22) suggests:
Eat your meats and drink your wine ...
Go eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
אכל בקר ושתות יין
אכול ושתו כי מחר נמות
Appears to be an old suggestion.
Why do things matter, at all. Why lead anything approximating an ethically-sound life? Why not cheat? And from whence this sense that things matters? Is there a word for this? There is a word for the experience among those withdrawn from the World of relations or those withdrawn into depression ... anhedonia ... It means an inability to experience pleasure in our own world. Various dictionaries do give possible near-synonyms for the expression "it doesn't matter." Among them:
But none of these quite capture the whole enchilada. In Mathematics, there were those who sought to define everything and who ran into what they would come to call "primitive" notions. Membership of an element in a set was one such idea. "a belongs to Set A" ... means, perhaps, "a is a member of Set A" or "a is in Set A" ... but such attempts at definition were, after all is said and done, just other ways of saying the same thing ... were no help in providing a definition. The statement that:
"A cat is a furry quadripedal omnivorous mammalian pain-in-the-ass" ... comes closer to definition. One defines by locating the thing or experience or idea in the intersection of several or many broader categories. But, of course, that could describe my GuntherDog, as well ... he's furry enough ... he manages, still, to ambulate on fours, he'll eat just about any shit even if he prefers cat-shit, and he's a pain in the butt, alright. So, maybe I shouldn't feel all that bad.
My Grandfather used to say from his language ... תאמר פארקערט ... maybe it's better to look at it upside down. Einstein's favorite philosopher Spinoza had it similarly: "all definition is negation." Maybe it's best to say what it's not.
So, maybe it would be better to begin with what doesn't matter or what matters little. Maybe. Like, for me, it matters little what I choose to wear or how my hair is combed or whether some bits of food hang from my mustachio during eating in a public or a private space. Or upside down, the sharing of kindnesses matters to me a lot. Or maybe the best we can do is the Spelling Bee system:
"Would you put that in a sentence for me?"
or alternatively:
"Accept it ... this whole matter of "What things matter?" is very idiosyncratic"
... not "idiot-syncratic," maybe but idiosyncratic, that is, connected to the individual or individual tastes? Is this a cop-out? Maybe. What one can do no more than to say what matters to them. I suppose this is a matter of "categories," as I think of a category as something that divides some part of our World into two parts ...
the part that I like or admire or that matters to me
and
the part I don't like or don't admire and that doesn't matter to me.
So, lemme end with a story someone told me about their Aunt Rose's Categories. David was a man in his 40's with a wife and kids. He met with the matriarch of his family to, as we say, "come out."(To get the full flavor, one might read the Aunt Rose part with her Eastern European accent that she brought here to America when she emigrated from her homeland).
This was the reported conversation:
David: Aunt Rose, I'm leaving Rachel and the kids
and moving out to be with Heinrich.
Aunt Rose: YOU'RE MOVING IN MIT A NAZI!?
Maybe I'll come back to this, soon. But for the time being, I can say little more than "Some things matter to me and some don't."
Maybe we have it all up side down?
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