Bobulate: An algebra of self-reliance

Over homework, I’d become enraged with my parents, my father in particular, as I’d sit at the kitchen table. “How do you spell XX?” I would ask. “Look it up,” he would reply in stride, continuing to put away dishes, not even glancing in my direction. @#&!%! As if he didn’t know! Off I would go to the dictionary (I remember not which, as at that time, I knew only of The Dictionary) to look up the word. This research repeated many evenings for most of my childhood. I was a stubborn child and continued to ask. He was a principled man and continued with the imperative.

These early moments of wonder (really of frustration first) formed a pattern, the methods surrounding wonder and pathways for answer-finding. They too led to a pattern of independence that was discernible, an algebra of self-reliance, that was easy to sense each time it started to emerge in other places.

Algebras of self-reliance

The lookup wasn’t simply about the word at all, it was the physical movement that was solely instigated by and completed by me. A formula that required me to be here, then there, then here again. The chemistry of stimulation.

I can’t help but mention Twyla Tharp, from whom I borrowed the title, on rituals of self-reliance:

My morning workout ritual is the most basic form of self-reliance; it reminds me that, when all else fails, I can at least depend on myself. It’s my algebra of self-reliance: I depend on my body in order to work, and I am more productive if my body is strong. My daily workout is a part of my preparation for work.