A Thousand and One Chores....

Tangents.  We all think in tangents.  Before we can complete a thought on one thing we get an idea that leads us off to the side and hisses in our ear.

“Oy!  You!”  It hisses.

“What?  Me?”  You say, all innocent.

“Yerss, you!”  The idea says, compelling you to not finish your original thought train.

“OK.  What is it?  I can come back to this one later!”

Now it giggles.  It knows that ‘later’ you will have forgotten.  You will have a vague notion in your head that there was something you wanted to think about but it has all gone.  All.  All that remain are just odd, irritating little tendrils of hints and suggestions.

You are being lined up for yet another tangent.

I had a tangent during the last ‘Blog’ but I fought it.  Manfully, you might say.

This is that tangent.  Because, just to spite the ‘idea’ sprite in my head, I made a short note.

Short notes are always better than long memories and ‘idea’ sprites.

There have been, as there always are, articles in the more flamboyant newspapers about men being led astray by deliciously curvaceous young(ish) ladies.

Some men seem to be led more willingly astray than those others who decry their innocence and plead with their wives to stand by them.  This is particularly true, it seems to me, of politicians who are greasily guileful and desire nothing more than to stay in the position that they have, somehow, acquired.

These are what are known as ‘Fencepost Tortoises’.  When you see a tortoise perched on top of a fence post you are looking at a creature that has no idea how it got there, what it is to do, how to get down and, even more importantly, why it is there.  It has been put there by someone who has no understanding of the needs of either fence posts or tortoises and to whom the purpose of both is a complete mystery.

Politicians.

The ‘idea’ sprite is trying to insert a tangent!

Back to the point.

These adulterous liaisons are often ascribed to the lust of the male partner.  He is a deviant.  He cannot keep his demands in his trousers and zipped up.  He is a shameful example of the woeful deceit that is encapsulated in the male mind.

Footballers often spring to mind in this context.

But wait.

Let’s just stop and think about this before we get ultra-emotional and hurl blame to all corners of the page.

Many years ago, when time was young and people lived in small villages separated by hills and forests, the Chief of the tribe was a hardy, tough individual who led his people through life safely.  He, it was, who enforced such laws as they had; he distributed justice along with food; he provided safety and security by the strength of his arm and the wit in his head.  Perhaps some ancient crone huddling over her pot of boiling herbs advised him.  (‘The Hags of Teeb’ at www.davidleyman.com qv)

It is he who is able to provide the safety and security necessary for the raising of a young child to grow successfully into manhood and become, maybe, the next Chieftain.  Genes, they say, will out.

Thus it is that the young women of the village will cast their eyes towards him.  They will actively hunt him as it is that he hunts for food for the tribe.  They know, the wise ones, that he has no time for seeking out a partner.  They must be pro-active.  Sitting in the corner fluttering their eyelashes will not suffice.

At last there is a successful candidate.  She becomes his partner and bears him a child—hopefully a male, but...

Now comes the tricky part.  For her.

She is looking after the baby.  She is cooking, cleaning the hut, repairing his clothes, chewing new skins ready to make into clothes and a thousand and one other chores while he goes about his business of bringing home the.... er....well, if not bacon, the venison, perhaps.

He arrives home.  Has dinner.  Goes out for a chat with the rest of the lads to plan the next day’s hunt and “is there enough laid by for a village holiday?” type of meeting.  He may consult the crone for any omens of portent that he should be aware of for the good of all.

Then he goes home and says “Get ‘em off, you’re on next.” To his beloved.

Reply?  “I’m tired.  Tomorrow.  Maybe.”

Tricky.  She needs to keep him.  There is competition out there.  They, the other girls, hover at the edges of the Chief’s domestic life ready to insinuate themselves into that position of power.

Imagine.  His wife is tired, she has worked relentlessly all day to keep him looking nice and to feed him.  She has cared for and cosseted their baby.  She looks like more like the old crone than the old crone does.

Compare this picture with the seductively nubile young thing with the prominent, er, architecture and the pouting lips.

She, that delightful young thing, for her part, is hard-wired biologically, as was the wife, to go for the power base, the success, and the protection.  He, on the other hand, is also hard-wired to go for the ‘spreading the seed around as much as possible to secure the lineage’ software.

Has anything changed?  No.  We have advanced technologically but socially?  We are, in essence, just as we were then.

It is too easy to blame the fellow and pity the wife.  Sometimes, though, perhaps we should look at things a little closer than we do—or, at least, than the newspapers do.

What does this have to do with writing?

I knew that one was coming.  I could see it lurking under your eyebrows.

Well.  Whatever it is that we write we must remember that people, human beings, are all the product of a long history of social development.  Or lack of development in this case.  We can write all sorts of fiction with all sorts of outlandish ideas (get back, sprite!) but we have to stay within the reasonable framework of what is acceptable and what is not.

Might I draw (sic) an analogy?  Cartoonists of all types make outrageous representations of humans and I, admittedly, am among them.  But the basic shapes and proportions have to be there.  Somehow a duck still has to look a bit like a duck, even if it talks, and a person still has to look somewhat ‘humanesque’ or it will not be recognised.  Aliens have a similar slant.  If they are intelligent and, even, enemies they must be recognisable as such.

The same must be true of writing.  Deviate too far and the story becomes ridiculous.

Recognising humanity and its weaknesses is a must from a writer’s perspective; second-hand observations give rise to second-hand writing.

Which gives me an idea.....