2010.03.23 01:00 - Kiddie stuff

The Guardian for this meeting was Wester Kiranov. The comments are by Wester Kiranov.

I came in a bit late but no one was there. After a while Aztlan Foss came in too. We introduced ourselves.

Aztlan Foss: hi wester
Wester Kiranov: hi aztlan
Aztlan Foss: you the host today?
Wester Kiranov: yes. I see I don't have to ask if you've been here before
Aztlan Foss: nah I've been here a few times
Aztlan Foss: I like this place
Aztlan Foss: wish I could come more often, though.
Aztlan Foss: it's the kind of place I wish I had near home
Wester Kiranov: yeah, that would be nice
Aztlan Foss: so what's up? how long have you been a host?
Wester Kiranov: I'm having a bit of a hectic day actually
Wester Kiranov: I had to be here an hour earlier because daylight saving time is not the same in the US and Europe
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: and RL didn't really let me
Aztlan Foss: that sucks, you should just take it easy
Wester Kiranov: i'm trying to.

As my daughter was quite actively distracting me, the conversation turned to her, and then to children in general. First about the things they like to watch on TV.

Aztlan Foss: one thing I hope in general is that if anyone isn't in imminent danger and they are stressing out then there's prioreties that chan be juggled around.
Wester Kiranov: and for how long I've been a host? a year or so now
Wester Kiranov: no, no imminent danger.
Wester Kiranov: just my daughter keeping on asking if she can watch Diego. And she should be in preschool right now but I just couldn't take her as she had an anger fit
Aztlan Foss: Diego? what's that?
Wester Kiranov: and now she's screaming "Yes, I'm very sweet!!!!"
Wester Kiranov: Diego is a very stupid children's tv program. related to Dora, if you know that
Aztlan Foss: my nephew is 2 and I baby-sit almost every day and I only know Elmo :-D
Wester Kiranov: you let them watch it once and they don't want to do anything else anymore
Aztlan Foss: most of the time I take him outside and we'll play in the grass
Aztlan Foss: he LOOVE Mr. Noodle
Wester Kiranov: we don't have a garden
Aztlan Foss: ouch :(
Wester Kiranov: i don't know Mr. Noodle. is he related to the flying spaghettimonster? ;)
Aztlan Foss: when I was growing up I had dirt roads to play in. I lived in Mexico till I was like 6. Then I came to the USA and my childhood ended
Aztlan Foss: Mr. Noodle is the guy that Dorathy and Elmo ask questions about stuff in Elmo's world.
Aztlan Foss: what's crazy is that Mr. Noodle never knows anything but they always go to him when they want to figure something out, like where the nose is.
Aztlan Foss: it's good that you tell me about that other show, though, I'm guessing eventually I'll find out about it.
Wester Kiranov: sounds like a good strategy really - at least you won't get a dogmatic answer from Mr Noodles
Aztlan Foss: today Mr. Noodle was asking how do you Wink? and he started drinking water. So Elmo had to tell him Drinking sounds like Winking but it's not the same! :-P
Aztlan Foss: it's all siliness but overall it's just as good as anything else, as long as you take care of them learning how to connect with the world.
Aztlan Foss: and it's just my nephew so I guess I don't get that full parent mentallity though
Wester Kiranov: now she's switchted to asking for Maru the cat - you know him?

(This is Maru btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_AbfPXTKms)

Aztlan Foss: nope :(
Wester Kiranov: he's a cat on youtube. quite funny actually
Aztlan Foss: I try not to show him too much TV. I just play with him, but he's not my kid so I'm not with him 24/7
Aztlan Foss: hehehe
Aztlan Foss: with my nephew I show him vidoes and goes "MOMMY!" which means he wants to look at girls.
Aztlan Foss: apparently he thinks all girls are mommy
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: at some time he'll find out they're not - hopefully
Aztlan Foss: hehehe
Aztlan Foss: it's probably just a language thing
Aztlan Foss: who knows. I love him but I don't think as much as a parent would

Then we came to the question whether everyone should have children, and what having children does with your life (demonstrated live).

Aztlan Foss: do you think everyone should have children? I'm planning on not having any of my own ever
Wester Kiranov: No, luckily we have the choice now whether to have them or not
Aztlan Foss: so if we decide NOT the reproduce what does that say about life in general?
Wester Kiranov: well, if we don't reproduces genes we can alsways reproduce memes
Wester Kiranov: and as we can have more than two children per pair of parents, if we stop people from dying some people should stop reproducing, at least partially
Wester Kiranov: sorry, have to give kid time out. brb
Aztlan Foss: lol
Aztlan Foss: kk
Wester Kiranov: back - for a minute (or three)
Aztlan Foss: how old is he?
Wester Kiranov: she's three and a half
Aztlan Foss: cool my nephew is 2 and a half
Aztlan Foss: I hope they get along when they get older
Wester Kiranov: :-)
Wester Kiranov: I have a son of three and a half too, but I did manage to get him to preschool today
Aztlan Foss: so what's the whole having kids thing like?
Aztlan Foss: I'm 29 and I have zero children and I'm wondering what's in it?
Wester Kiranov: i'm not sure you're asking at a representative time ;-)
Aztlan Foss: i might be asking at the best time
Aztlan Foss: the time when it's happening
Aztlan Foss: like you can be 80 and thinking back saying "my memories say it was good"
Wester Kiranov: I have to get my daughter out of her room again first. brb
Aztlan Foss: but right now you're going through it
Aztlan Foss: lol kk
Aztlan Foss: right now you have more than enough fresh experience to let me know just how it is in-time not restrospectively
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: it is hard to explain to someone who doesn't have children. I'm not sure I could explain to my 29-old self (although by that time I was at the point where I thought I would probably have children sometime)
Aztlan Foss: maybe it's like explaning a religious experience to someone who's never had one
Aztlan Foss: you could still express maybe some misconceptions you had
Aztlan Foss: you could probaboly start with stuff like "you might think it's like...but it's really like...." and maybe something like "there's this combination of feelings that are like... and also like... at the same time"
Wester Kiranov: it can be very hard sometimes. But it's a very good opportunity to practice unconditional love.
Aztlan Foss: does it feel like an oportunity as much as it feels like an obligation?
Wester Kiranov: I can't type more than one sentence at the time
Wester Kiranov: if I let myself feel it as an opportunity, yes. When I'm tired and stressed it's harder to feel it like that.
Wester Kiranov: time for another time out.
Aztlan Foss: either she's a very bad girl or you're mean! :-P
Wester Kiranov: today she's a very bad girl. usually she's not that bad ;-)
Aztlan Foss: hehehe she's teeeesting you
Wester Kiranov: the thing is that you can take so much more of that than you think beforehand. All the stress and sleep deprivation and whatever, they're worth it. Even when she's like this. It's just hard to combine with a conversation.
Aztlan Foss: well yeah it's not like you're just having to control someone. You've got all these things on your mind before you make a single choice. Like what's important, what's the purpose, what is your relationship to her in terms of life and what will this all boil down to down time.
Wester Kiranov: time out over. brb
Aztlan Foss: she better behave! :-P
Wester Kiranov: she's baby mole now. i'm mama mole :-)
Aztlan Foss: hehehe
--BELL--
Aztlan Foss: see I think the reason I question having kids so much is that I like kids and there's a lot of appeal for it but it's just such a huge commitment
Wester Kiranov: it is, sure
Wester Kiranov: the biggest commitment
Aztlan Foss: yeah biggest! that's quite scary
Aztlan Foss: it's not like you divorse or break up and they're adults
Aztlan Foss: you can't divorse your kids
Wester Kiranov: that's true. the real till death do us part
Aztlan Foss: yeah it's like, you don't even need a ceremony for that one
Aztlan Foss: I always lean towards not having kids but I guess it's one of those things where you either know what it's about or it never happens, and it's such a black and white thing you either make the right choice or you miss out
Aztlan Foss: the last question is if it's a basic part of living.

And then we started to get all philosophical about the turns your life can take and how they look from different points of view, like before and after you've made an irreversible decision.

Wester Kiranov: I can quite imagine my life having taken a turn where I wouldn't have had kids, it's not been something I've always wanted, or wanted very badly
Wester Kiranov: but now I can't imagine life without them
Aztlan Foss: because you're stuck! :-P
Aztlan Foss: I had a cat for about 5 years and i had to put him down about a week ago
Aztlan Foss: it was quite painful
Wester Kiranov: of course it's totally possible this is all rationalization :-P
Wester Kiranov: sorry about your cat
Aztlan Foss: so it's kinda like I don't know what it was like when he didn't exist but once someone is born or someone comes in to your life it isn't realy about them coming in as much as it is what space they ocupy
Aztlan Foss: when he died it wasn't like "oh so now it's like when I didn't have him"
Aztlan Foss: somehow I think that realy defines life a bit more.
Aztlan Foss: I'll give you an analogy I hope you kinda get
Aztlan Foss: right now I have a keyboard in front of me, I do music sometimes
Aztlan Foss: I look at the keys and I wonder if the sounds exist or don't if I don't play them
Aztlan Foss: at any moment right now I can choose to play any of those keys
Aztlan Foss: do they exist? I wonder
Aztlan Foss: if I press a key and a sound comes out I picked one of the many posibilities so did I deny my self all the other keys?
Aztlan Foss: none of those ideas are particularly usefull, though.
Aztlan Foss: what I think is really going on is that when I pick a key I understand what can-be and when it plays It happens. it's an event.
Aztlan Foss: it didn't exist before and it doesn't exist after
Aztlan Foss: I have to be there to experience the event, on top of making the event of that particular sound happen.
--BELL--
Aztlan Foss: so it's probably the same with a lot of other things, like children. they are an event that spans a life-time, which means you're one of those events
Wester Kiranov: things happen or don't happen because of choices you make, and the world is not the same after you've made the choice
Aztlan Foss: yeah exactly
Aztlan Foss: once you make something happen the world changes
Aztlan Foss: like a kid, you make it happen
Aztlan Foss: so it's not about what you would do with out the kid, is that the kid is now a part of the world, it's inseperable and having that no longer exist would be a part the world extinguishing, but not before.
Aztlan Foss: I guess it's kinda like music, each tune has a set of notes and when all those notes go away the song ends, but the notes that never got played were never missed because they weren't a part of the song.
Wester Kiranov: but if you write a song you won't know beforehand which notes are going to be in, and which ones are going to seem more important
Aztlan Foss: yeah you wouldn't, we're the notes though so we don't know what the song sounds like
Aztlan Foss: it's like, we're the note in the song and our life is too short to know what we'r a part of.
Aztlan Foss: OR your kids could just be brats and we're not realy a part of anything :-D
Wester Kiranov: also possible:)
Aztlan Foss: somehow I find that more comforting
Aztlan Foss: if life realy has no aim or meaning there's realy nothing to mess up
Wester Kiranov: yeah, but should we choose the most comfortable option?
Aztlan Foss: if it doesn't matter what we choose then it's defenately an appealing option
--BELL--
Aztlan Foss: it's like, why worry about what doesn't matter?
Wester Kiranov: maybe how we choose is more important than what we choose
Aztlan Foss: what do you mean?

And then it was time to leave.

Wester Kiranov: I think I should go and pay a bit more attention to my daughter now. We've been here for almost two hours, do you mind holding that question till the next time?
Aztlan Foss: not at all
Aztlan Foss: your girl has a lot more potential than me :-D
Wester Kiranov: see you round then
Aztlan Foss: thanks for the chat
Wester Kiranov: namaste
Wester Kiranov: bye
Aztlan Foss: bye