Aristotle in my Eye

I watched a super interesting YouTube on Ted Talks this weekend, one of a few I found really interesting. It was a talk by Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs. First of all, I love Mike Rowe. I'd marry him. Lol. Here's the video if you'd like to check it out. It's really interesting, and might just make you think a little deeper...

His attraction lies deeper than the obvious manliness he projects. The guy is smart. And I mean really, REALLY smart. He's a great speaker, and his ethics in making Dirty Jobs totally real--unscripted, unrehearsed, and  no "take twos"--make it an honest show that tells it exactly like it is, and that's worthy of admiration, too.

Anyway, the episode he discussed was about how wrong even the "experts" can get things. He was sent to be an apprentice to a sheep farm, and he knew beforehand he would be castrating some lambs. The method involved putting a very tight rubber band on certain parts of the lambs. Wanting to be sure this method was the accepted, humane method of performing castration on a lamb, he checked with the ASPCA, the local humane society, and even PETA. They all said "Yep, that's the humane way to do it."

So, Mike felt pretty comfortable with that...until he actually saw with his own eyes exactly how wrong the "experts"were.

The sheepherds in question were a man named Albert and his wife. Their method was very different than what the experts had told Mike. When Albert's wife plopped the first lamb on the table, Albert whipped out a wicked looking knife, that Mike said, "caught the sunlight just right," and with two quick slices, the castration was done.

Mike was appalled. For the first time ever, he put up his hands and cut the take. He said, "Hey, wait a second. This is wrong. You can't do it like this. I want it done the right way."

Albert said, "The way the humane society says to do it?"

"Yes, exactly, the way the humane society says to do it."

Albert sighed and said, "Okay." He pulled out the rubber bands, and wrapped them tightly around the lambs little parts. His wife set the lamb down, and it took two steps...and fell down. It got back up again, started to quiver, and fell down again. By the time it reached a corner, it was crying and shaking badly.

Mike glanced at the lamb that was snipped with the knife. It was hopping around like happy lambs are supposed to, "frolicking," as Mike put it.

He glanced at the lamb quivering in agony in the corner. "How long will that lamb suffer before the parts fall off?"

Albert replied, "About a week."

You could almost hear Mike's heart crack in the instant of Aristotelian peripeteia and anagnorisis. Anagnorisis, along with peripeteia, is that critical moment in time when a person makes the transition from ignorance to knowledge. Much like Forrest's many moments he describes in his memoir.

In this example, Mike realized the so-called "experts" were dead wrong. And he wondered how often he had done the "wrong" thing with the "right" intentions. Makes you think, doesn't it?

It makes one reflect on their own moments of peripeteia and anagnorisis. I think one of my most recent ones is reflected in this haiku I wrote last night:

A wish thrown upward
to be the pink daughter she
wanted, even just once.

When my mom was nearing death, she struggled to tell me she had always wanted a "pink daughter," meaning a "girly girl." And then she quietly told me that even though I wasn't a "pink daughter," I was a good daughter, and that she was proud of me. That was a moment of anagnorisis for me. There were a few times when I was forced to be "pink," but not without tears and stress. As I grew, she let me be me, even though sometimes, when I was a teenager, she would remark I wouldn't ever find a man by being "plain Jane." She had, over the years, accepted that although I may never be "pink," I was still "good."

And I understood, in my own moment of anagnorisis, that although I was "good," I could have been pink, even sometimes, just to make her proud, or happy, or something. It was a moment of discovery, a moment where I realized that giving up a part of myself, for a while and for the benefit of someone else, could be a wonderful thing in the end.

I mean, it was easy for me to be generous with my time, my money, and other superficial things. But I've always had this firm resolve in my head that to give up who I was born to be, to give up a piece of myself, was to betray my innermost soul. What I failed to realize is that I didn't have to stop being me to be pink sometimes, and if I did, the sacrifice would mean so much more. And so the poem came out.

Anyway, after the talk, I did a little research on what anagnorisis and peripeteia were. They are both Aristotelian concepts. Anagnorisis is defined as "the change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune." And peripeteia is defined as "a reversal of circumstances, a turning point."

Anagnorisis and peripeteia is going into a situation, thinking you're doing the right thing, only to be confronted with the tragic truth of how very wrong you've been. Mike Rowe had a moment of peripeteia when he'd gone into a situation blind, with certain expectations, then was confronted with an opposite truth that opened his eyes to see things in a new light. He realized the experts were wrong, and their concept of the right way to castrate lambs was, in reality, more painful and inhumane than Albert's more "violent" way.

We all have these pivotal, "turning around" moments in life. Recognizing and acting on them is a sign of healthy self-awareness, something I had thought I lacked. Now I realize that these moments happen more than I thought, and most of the time, I do act on them. And that's a good feeling. Maybe I'm not as much as a misfit as I thought.