On Riddles

Often in epic stories, characters come upon riddles that need to be solved. Riddles are used as a matching of wits as a change of pace to the regular matching of brawn. This occurs in Greek mythology, Norse mythology, the Hobbit, Batman and the Dark Tower. Like epic matches of brawn, lives are almost always on the line and the fighting is almost never fair.

Riddles often rely on metaphors. What has four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening? Once one connects days to lives and legs with arms and canes, the riddle solves itself. Riddles often rely on puns. When is a door not a door? When is a door not adore? When it’s a jar. When it’s ajar.

What is frustrating about riddles is that both metaphorical riddles and pun based riddles are almost impossible to solve because they exist in worlds of infinite solutions. Anything could be the solution to a riddle. On top of that, one doesn’t know how clever, complicated or fitting the answer is supposed to be. The result of this is solutions are almost always dependent on whether you’ve heard the riddle or something similar before.

True heroes answered riddles based on their wits; they fought fairly. Batman would actually figure out the Riddler’s riddles. Oedipus’ wit actually defeated the Sphinx. These feats, though, are as unrealistic as Gilgamesh’s weeklong wrestling match with Enkidu.

Other tales highlight the problems of riddles. In a number of tales, the heroes change the game. Odin, when faced against the giant Vafthruthnir asked “what did Odin whisper to his son Balder before he was placed on the pyre?” Bilbo Baggins asked Gollum “what’s in my pocket?” Eddie of New York asked Blain the Mono “what’s the difference between a truck of bowling balls and a truck of woodchucks?” These tales take riddles to their logical end- ultimate obscurity (a single person knows), infinite possibilities and no clues.

Some may see Odin, Bilbo and Eddie as cheaters, but they are actually playing the game ruthlessly well. Riddles are not games of logic and intelligence. If logic and intelligence were truly at play, everyone would have sat down to do math problems. Riddles are pedantic and are purely about delivering questions in ones’ own realm of knowledge and not in the opponents. Our anti-heroes recognized that obscurity was the game and saw that personal knowledge was the best way to achieve that.

David killed Goliath by not fighting him hand-to-hand and instead hitting him with a missile. Was that fair? No, but neither would hand-to-hand. Competitions are usually designed, presented and participated in by people who are adept at them. Only a fool would box a boxer. Wit is the same. “Smart” people are usually just people who choose to engage people on things they happen know about.

Still Alive

In fiction, death has meaning. Protagonists go down in blazes of glory. Antagonists fall allowing everyone beneath them, quite abruptly, to be free and live happily ever after. It is amazing how often the world is presented as something fragile enough that a single life can tip the scales.

Death in real life usually doesn’t mean much. Oh, we’re sad when loved ones die and death, in general, is a lurking force in our lives. But when someone dies in real life, it is usually senseless and empty. Little is learned and little is gained. It is a loss, but not much changes. Systems are in place for successors, people adapt and life goes on.

People often try to make one’s death matter. Murderers think that offing one person will significantly benefit them. Martyrers think that their life will advance an issue. In the end, though, it usually takes many murders and many martyrs before anyone takes notice or anything changes.

Historians, both professional and amateur, attempt to make deaths matter as well. With nearly every emperor, king and president, there is a story that tries to exploit a death. Often there is a rumor of murder (Napoleon), or conspiracy (JFK), or a fantastic quote (John Adams). No “great man” can simply die, it seems. With a great story, people attempt to use a death to mobilize people behind or against something.

Some individuals, though, were so important that the rumor of life was stronger than death. Through supernatural means, these divine characters continued on.

Alexander the Great led armies to conquer most of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia and India. When he died (probably of natural causes), the diadochi quickly split things up and things went to pot. For hundreds of years, rumors circulated that Alexander (who was the son of Zeus) was still alive and still conquering.

Nero held the vast Roman Empire together under a period of economic prosperity. When he died, the empire fell into civil war. Again, for hundreds of years, rumors circulated among his admirers and enemies that Nero (the last son of Aeneas, descendant of Venus, and, to the Christians, the Antichrist) was still alive and would return.

And, of course, there is the story of Jesus, which has all of the elements. He is the son-of-God martyr who was conspired against and murdered. He said a bunch of great quotes and he is rumored to be alive. The story has then been used to mobilize people more people than any other.

These stories show that life is more powerful than death. With death, one can only make one limited statement, which eventually is forgotten. With life, one can have many more tales. This can even be seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. Spock dies to make a powerful ending, but writers realized that Spock resurrected, as ridiculous as it was, was more useful.

Perhaps one day, Americans will believe that a divine Washington is still alive.

Experience

Every now and then, I find myself talking about traveling and living abroad. Okay, whom am I kidding? This actually occurs quite often. So, today, I found myself talking about Rome with a couple friends who both spent some time there.

Now, I hated Rome, which causes many to crinkle their brow and look at me with disapproving anger. When I tell people this, it’s like I have said I hate sunshine or babies. For the life of them, they cannot understand how I, of all people, could not like Rome.

The reason I didn’t like Rome is fairly simple. I was a poor nineteen-year-old American backpacker there in the summer time (the height of tourist season). The city was dirty, most of the sites were closed for repairs and everyone I met was really, really mean. That, and a train conductor tried to extort money from me, which led to a brutal fistfight and me crapping my pants (yes, that actually happened).

People usually dismiss my opinion of Rome with a simple “you had a bad experience.” This statement, though, is rather empty. Of course, I had a bad experience. Everything is experience. Every place one goes, person one meets and piece of food one eats is an experience. One’s like or dislike of anything is based purely on one’s own personal experience.

Some would argue that if I had more experiences there, my opinion would improve. People use this “limited exposure” argument for a lot of things. When you hate someone, people say, “Once you get to know him, he’s not that bad.” When you hate a food, people say, “It is a refined taste.” When you hate music, people try to introduce you to more of it. They expect that with more exposure, one will come around.

There is some merit to that argument. Certainly, limited experience gives one a skewed picture of something. There is no denying this. But, it should be noted that a limited experience is still an experience. Lovers of things dismiss other’s limited experience as no experience, which is a serious mistake.

A person allergic to peanut butter may not know peanut butter well, but their limited experience is important. A victim of a rape may only know a rapist for a few minutes, but their experience is important.

After all, ample experience also gives people a skewed picture of something. Irrational sentimentality begins to develop for people, places and things over time. One learns to ignore the bad, become numb to it, and only focus on the good. A friend from Hungary one told me that the old bread lines didn’t seem so bad. Everyone stood in them everyday. It was normal and no one really minded.

Take DC- I have lived here nearly six years. To me, it’s a pretty good town. The crime isn’t so bad because I have learned to shelter myself from it. I know which parts of town I like and I know which modes of transportation to take. Furthermore, I know the people, the restaurants and bars I don’t like and I avoid them. In a sense, I have crafted my own DC that it vastly different from anything a stranger would stumble upon. In many ways, a stranger wandering around DC without bias sees a truer DC than I know.

The naïve should naturally respect experience, but the adept should also, in turn, respect fresh eyes.

Weird

At a happy hour on Tuesday, I was part of conversation in which a very drunk woman said, “…and so now I feel weird after tongue-kissing my boss because I just found out he’s married.”

As I left the bar, her friends remarked that the story was certainly odd, but it was simply amazing that she completely missed what was truly weird about the story. Who makes out with their boss? Who does this at work? Who the hell uses the term “tongue-kissing?” The most banal part of the story is that he’s married. What’s weird is that she somehow missed the fact her boss was married and yet got to the point of making out with him at work.

Weirdness is funny thing (by definition). We’re all weird in some way and if we weren’t, we’d be horribly boring. But there are two types of weirdness- the weirdness we know and the weirdness we don’t know.

Most of know that there are aspects of ourselves that don’t fit in with the rest of society. Maybe one has a mole or one really loves horseradish. Maybe one secretly has a thing for Australian aborigines. Whatever-the-case, we are usually aware that the rest of society does not share our trait. Even truly deranged Nazis, pedophiles and murderers are smart enough to know that they don’t fit in and hide their differences, usually in their basements.

But then there are people that somehow think that their difference is normal and go on with life completely unaware of it. There are those people who freely use racial slurs and somehow don’t notice everyone cringing. There are those people with exceptionally bad haircuts. Its not that they know and don’t care; its that they somehow don’t know.

Another story. I went to Valencia when I was 20 during a festival called Las Fallas. I hadn’t planned ahead very well and every hotel in the city was completely booked. Luckily, I befriended this guy Dante that was part of a group of Americans who were studying in Switzerland. They had a room and he said I could crash on the floor. He warned me of something first, though. He said, “I have to wake up early and catch a boat to Majorca. There’s a couple I’m staying with who are the cheapest human beings I’ve ever known. They are fucked-up human beings.”

So, after partying, I tried to sleep on the cold tile of the room Dante and this couple shared. After Dante left, I caught a few hours sleep in his bed. I awoke to the sound of the couple whispering about how much money they were going to ask me for. I could see that Dante had left 800 pesetas ($5.50) on the table as his share.

“So,” said the girl, “We really hooked you up, you know. We were thinking that you could pay 1600 pesetas for the room.”

“I’m going to pay what Dante paid.” I said. I put down 800 pesetas and promptly left without any goodbyes.

I met up with Dante a day later in Majorca and told him the story.

“Ha, we paid 2400 for the room. They wanted to pay nothing.” He shook his head and said “You know what the most harmful thing in the world is? When fucked-up people get together. A fucked-up individual by himself isn’t too dangerous. When he’s alone, he keeps those ideas to himself. You get two fucked-up people together and they start feeding off each other. They convince each other that somehow the way they live and the way they think isn’t fucked up.”

He was right. Freaks with freaks, assholes with assholes, Republicans with Republicans, fundamentalists with fundamentalists. They spend time with each other and they feed off each other until the weird becomes the status quo. Of course, weird is relative, so we are all doing this by hanging out with peers. Guys with mullets come from groups with mullets. Goths come from groups of Goths. Our friend who was making out with her boss must have been part of a group where that was normal.

Pedantic dilettantes come from groups of pedantic dilettantes.