Conversations on the school run

Simon Cooper
September 21, 2012

Getting a lift home after school

There is always that tension between those who are ready, those who have just decided that they are suddenly well enough for school and those who won't turn off their NintendoDS. But once in the car today with the four boys we had a bit of philosophy. Damon doubting we would be early, Lenny pointing out that Damon is a pessimist, Damon happily claiming that label, and then me explaining how the opposite of pessimism is optimism.

We wondered where realists fit into the picture. I said that realism does not as Damon claimed sit closer to pessimism than optimism.

And then ventured into how realism is subjective and one person's reality is different from the next. It is how one person sees what is around them.

I pointed out how that is different, from a birds eye perspective or what we might call a universal perspective that God might have of what is real.

From that Lenny brought us back down to earth to comment on how he had got ready for school in 9 mins (bed to car including a bacon muffin and socks and shoes being done in car). He explained his enduring tummy ache had been real but made all the more potent by the thought of one or two lessons he wasn't keen on today. In the end he had decided he might as well make an effort and the thought of the football match at break time had helped to heal his physical suffering. That game was something he did not want to miss, more than he didn't want to be in the lesson.

And that was a v real account of how decisions are made from one moment to the next, weighing up options and possibilities and trying to make the right choices.