June 27, 2006

crying uncle

Our upcoming trip has just sprouted another tentacle, so it will be longer and even more complicated than originally planned. (I think Rudder's right. I need more yarn.) This is all a good thing, though. But I won't have internet access for chunks of it, so don't be surprised if things get quiet here after this week. If I do update, I'll use the Notify function, as usual. (I have a Notify function, if anyone cares who didn't already know - scroll down and look on the left sidebar to sign up.)

I just ended up posting a long comment in response to something Matociquala wrote. It's a bit tangential to her original point, but I think it's a point worth making on its own, so here's an expanded version.

She wrote:
I seem to recall Peter mentioning some studies to me, a while back, that tended to indicate that there was some genetic utility in homosexuality (and I don't remember what species of animal we were specifically talking about) in that the siblings of individuals that exhibited a same-sex preference tended to produce more surviving offspring.

Without getting into issues of sexuality because they're not relevant to my point, I can say that it's very useful to have a childless uncle (or aunt, I suppose) with a lifestyle different than your own, when you're growing up in an area where most people live in similar ways. I'm not sure if I knew anyone else growing up who had traveled outside the US other than for a military hitch, or who chose to live in a city other than where they were born. I don't think I knew anyone else with an advanced degree, other than doctors visited in a professional capacity. For me, my uncle was a window into another way of living.

Some physicist once wrote that two is a silly number - in the universe, things should come in zeroes, ones, or infinites. That is, there may be unique cases, but if there are two cases of something, there are almost always more. So once you know there's another way to live than the one you were brought up in, you can make the logical leap that there are still more ways to live, that you can choose for yourself where and how and with whom to shape a life. I think that's what having an uncle showed me.

Quite a lot of the people I grew up with seem to have built lives that are very similar to their parents' - maybe a little more prosperous, maybe in the suburbs rather than the city, but in the same geographic area (in a couple of cases in the same house) and within the same religious and social traditions. I'm not knocking that at all; being a fan of the examined life, I hope that their reasons for doing so are that they've thought about it and decided they like where and how they live. Even if they've never thought about it, I hope they just like where they live and have lives that suit them. That city has lots of good things to be said for it, and so does living close to the people you love.

I just don't think it would suit me. I have itchy feet. I don't regret leaving to try life in new cities, just that I've stayed in two of them for such long periods. I'd have liked to relocate every few years, but it's difficult when two jobs and all the logistics of houses and such are involved. Rudder doesn't mind moving to new places, but doesn't want to do it as often as I do. I don't regret at all falling in love with a husband from the opposite side of the country and from very different traditions. I don't regret any of the things we've done that make my mother think we're a little nuts sometimes (everything from skydiving to traveling to Antarctica to getting up at 4AM several times a week to row). I love housing a house with more space (and bathrooms!) than the one I grew up in. I might have some complaints here and there, but in the main I have a life that suits me, and it was having my uncle as an example that let me see that you could make different choices and influence your own life in a direction of your choosing. I can't claim it was an evolutionary advantage, since we also followed my uncle's example in choosing not to reproduce, but it certainly was an advantage in the evolution of my own life.

Posted by dichroic at June 27, 2006 01:09 PM
Comments

Well spoken. Maybe that's one of my challenges, a lack of pioneers. EVERY step in every area is someplace new. I'm building a life from scratch without a single trailblazer in any direction. At least in my growing up years. Fortunately I've had the eyes in my head to look to the people in my present life and learn from them. You being one, of course. Your warmth and friendship, surely, but it's awesome to me that you do all this cool stuff! Your adventures and can-do-it lifestyle cheer me on to try my own cool things. Thank you. ~LA

Posted by: LA at June 27, 2006 04:23 PM

I've always been interested in different lifestyles, long before I knew just how different they could get. It might have annoyed my mother that I didn't do what other girls did 00 or if I did, it was with girls she wouldn't have chosen. I rather thought that's what books were for, to show you what else there might be. I don't think I every knew a family or a neighborhood like those in my school readers. Everything we learn -- from whatever source -- makes us more than we were before. I'm glad you know that too.

Posted by: l'empress at June 29, 2006 02:57 PM
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