Spoiled

 

My kids hurt my feelings all the time, but no more so when they accuse me of trying to poison them with rotten food. I don’t. However, in an effort to be thrifty, I do sometimes serve them delicious meals with mature ingredients. Apparently I’ve done this enough times to where they now have the audacity to question my cooking.

“Is this food rotten?” one of them will ask.

“It’s not rotten.” I will respond, my heart broken. “I would never serve you rotten food. That’s disgusting.”

Unconvinced, they will then rummage in the trash like a night beast. “Bro! The package on these little weenies says the due date was, like, five days ago!”

“But that doesn’t mean they’re rotten! I’ve told you this before, eating food after the ‘sell-by’ date is not the same thing as eating spoiled food.”

“I’m not eating this. This is poison.”

“It’s not that poisonous - the preservatives, yes, those might be toxic at high temperatures - but I would never feed you actually rotten food!”

And I wouldn’t, and, as any retired grocer will tell you, the “sell-by” dates are not some magic day when food suddenly becomes toxic. As Jerry Seinfeld famously taught us in one of his early jokes, it’s not as if the cows all get together and decide when the milk is going to spoil. In fact, despite living in a country with all kinds of rules governing all kinds of human behavior, outside of baby formula, there are no federal regulations concerning food freshness. Thus, milk that is taken off the shelves in one state and deemed unsuitable to drink might stay on shelves for days later in a less bougie state where people have more respect for hard working cows.

The reality is, if you’re wondering if the milk is spoiled or if the meat is rotten or if you should eat questionable food, use your senses and make a logical decision based on human reasoning. Smell it. Does it make you want to throw up? If it does, don’t eat it. Under most circumstances, your body is not going to allow you to poison itself.

Thus, we arrive finally (and mercifully) to the actual point of this questionable column: we must rely once again on our God-given reason to make sense of this world, and that’s because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not.

As just one fiery example out of thousands, during the Los Angeles disaster earlier this year, fake pictures were shared on social media of the Hollywood sign on fire. Except that it wasn’t. And while this may seem like a harmless hoax, when such a picture is shared and then re-shared exponentially in real time, it’s potentially dangerous because some real humans were trying to move away from the real fires while other real humans were trying to find the real fires and stop them.

The last thing any of them needed was cruel nonsense guised as wit.

And even while the fires were still spreading, we were inundated with insane origin stories, from space lasers to diabolical social engineering. Los Angeles, though, is technically a desert. Considering the dry conditions, high winds, and densely populated residential areas - many of them with very little in the way of fire mitigation - such a disaster, (whether it was arson, accident, or combination of both) is entirely within the realm of reason.

What is not reasonable, unfortunately, is relying entirely on what we see and hear in the mass media to make sense of the world. Now, because of the advent of A.I. enhanced “deep fake” technology - video and audio recording - once considered the gold standard to determine the objective reality of something, must also be consumed with skepticism.

Granted, we’ve always been given an edited version of reality. (Even a neighbor offering a firsthand account of a traffic accident will choose which details to highlight, omit, and embellish.) Up until a few years ago, however, we could at least say, “Well, unless I see it with my own eyes or hear it with my own ears, I won’t believe it.” Now, though, you can do both and still need to question what happened.

It is unsettling, but it’s not hopeless.  However, it will require us to pause and use the human reason we’ve been given. It will require us to “smell the news,” so to speak - regardless of where it comes from - before chugging from the jug.

First and foremost, we need to be honest with ourselves as it pertains to our own biases, and how those biases influence our perception of reality. Everyone is biased; it’s hardwired into the system. When it comes to processing information, however, our biases often get in the way of reasoned evaluation.

Secondly, when processing information, whether it’s from a major television network or a podcast uploaded from down the street, ask yourself, “Does this even make sense? Does this information jive with what I know about human history, human nature, and the basic laws of physics?” This is why - despite some belief to the contrary - having a well-educated public is crucial to the health of a democracy.

Finally - and this is the same thing I tell my students - we must check our sources, and yes, we should have multiple sources. I realize everyone has their favorite little niche where they get most of their news, but not all media outlets are created equal, and getting news from social media is like finding a prom date based on the vulgarities scrawled on a restroom stall. It’s a bad idea.

In closing, I would never feed my kids rotten food…on purpose. However, those serving up the media we’re ingesting don’t always have the same scruples. Choose wisely.

The Lantern

When we first moved into our home in the spring of 2010, the lamppost in our front yard  glowed at night. Soon it stopped, though, regardless of how often we changed the light bulb, and since I’m no electrician, that was that. It remained in our front yard, often crooked, seemingly useless…

Or so I thought.

Earlier this month - on the twelfth day of Christmas - it snowed. 

Then, in the morning hours of Epiphany - January 6th - it snowed again.

And in the snow, particularly with lumpy flakes bumping into each other on their way to earth, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another snowy lamppost that stands prominent in a “children’s book” written by a certain British author.

The lamppost in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series - first introduced to us in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, - is something of an anachronism. It seems out of place, glowing softly in a snowy medieval forest full of fauns, dwarves, and other talking beasts. We later learn the lamppost was propagated to Narnia from London, an accidental magic trick born out of a struggle between a wicked witch and a magician’s nephew.

For many years I thought about having the lamppost removed. I found it an eyesore, useless, an annoyance to mow around each summer. This winter, though, at the end of the Christmas season, surrounded by snow, I saw it as something different. The lamppost became a totem, a reminder of the beginning of our life here in this home.

In fact, the lamppost became a quiet symbol of childhood itself, because when we first moved into this house, our first born was just a toddler. A year later she was joined by her baby brother, and together the two of them grew up in a childhood full of pirate adventures, ferris wheel rides, and breezy holidays at the beach. Years later, during the Christmas season of 2015, they were joined by their sister, and although she struggled mightily during her first years of life, thanks to the bravery and kindness of a dear family friend, she, too, was given the gift of a childhood.

But now, even more years later, it’s 2025, and it often seems that childhood itself has been buried beneath the busyness of our calendar and the cacophony of our gadgets. When it snowed, though, all three of them laughed together and played again like children, in a silly little Narnia of their own, if only for a little while.

And so I think the lamppost will stay. It does look best in the snow, but it’s a reminder - in all seasons - to take time to play and to imagine, to be brave and look toward the Lion.