A Triassic Lark
As a youth I entertained many notions of possible future employment. Astronaut. Cowboy. Garbageman. All of these, of course, are rugged, manly professions destined to attract the tiny male brain in early stages of development. None were to be my true calling. None would even sustain a level of desire beyond facetious reference or “oh, sigh, if only” platitudes.
What I truly yearned for...
What I notched my belt with, each tenuous step of the way...
The Life Calling that haunts everything from dreams to social-networking-profile self-assessments is not a future culled from the collective unconscious of the alpha male zeitgeist of centuries past, but rather a life of dull inspection. Of rational examination of the remnants of an era past. Long past.
My obsession with paleontology is rooted in ancient memories. So the largely-apocryphal family story goes, in an easter basket in my third year of life were tucked several plastic dinosaurs. They became my instant obsession, birthed from that plastic hash and possibly even from brightly colored eggs. Animals, clearly, but with a legacy of being long gone, unknowable and trapped in purview of science only. Literally, they were afforded their own discipline fraught with powerful words even my all-knowing parents were not familiar with.
Some of these names—Tyrannosaurus, of course, because what collection of saurischians would be complete with him. Stegosaurus, because no grandfather can resist teasing a child about the “kookiness” of those plates and spines. Triceratops, because she is perhaps the most identifiable of these long extinct animals—sharing characteristics of the rhinoceros or the cow.
There is power in words. There is an echoing in my inmost desires that is only slaked by the proof that I have more words than a rival. Even than a friend. Maybe this comes from all the teachers, friends of parents and shocked passersby and their remarks. “I could never remember all those words.” “How can he pronounce all of those?” Maybe, conversely, I was already wired to be prideful at the mention of my great linguistic prowess, and the discovery of a science that offered a panoply of new words was too much to handle.
Clearly a five year old who knows the difference between Dromaeosaurus and Dilophosaurus (and can tell you which one he identifies with more) isn't your average five year old. But honestly, even now I'm somewhat tickled by it. Remembering how I failed to ever become more than a dabbler in that magic. I have the words, but I will never sit in the hot sun of Laiyang county, cracking rocks to their Cretaceous core and robbing their secrets. I won't get to lay these words out in front of lecture halls. Robert Bakker will never know my name.
The funniest thing, in retrospect, is how tame these words sound now. Diplodocus and Psittacosaurus, though not in the common lexicon, are stiff words with only one meaning, less rhythm and no poetry. The pangs of echolalia one suffers from too much time discussing our long-gone Terrible Lizards is also a little tedious. This is nerd knowledge. It's as useful as star wars trivia, or rote memorization of the first hundred digits of pi. It encourages knee-jerk criticism of movies in which Brachiosauridae are depicted dragging their tails, or which feature man-sized Velociraptors. There are probably entire message boards dedicated to a crusade to unmask and lambaste the purveyors of these cinematic tragedies.
But I just don't care anymore. Because these were the dreams of my youth, and they're as silly as dreaming of being a cowboy.
Of course, if I were a cowboy who got to ride a dinosaur, there would be nothing silly about that at all. Seriously.
What I truly yearned for...
What I notched my belt with, each tenuous step of the way...
The Life Calling that haunts everything from dreams to social-networking-profile self-assessments is not a future culled from the collective unconscious of the alpha male zeitgeist of centuries past, but rather a life of dull inspection. Of rational examination of the remnants of an era past. Long past.
My obsession with paleontology is rooted in ancient memories. So the largely-apocryphal family story goes, in an easter basket in my third year of life were tucked several plastic dinosaurs. They became my instant obsession, birthed from that plastic hash and possibly even from brightly colored eggs. Animals, clearly, but with a legacy of being long gone, unknowable and trapped in purview of science only. Literally, they were afforded their own discipline fraught with powerful words even my all-knowing parents were not familiar with.
Some of these names—Tyrannosaurus, of course, because what collection of saurischians would be complete with him. Stegosaurus, because no grandfather can resist teasing a child about the “kookiness” of those plates and spines. Triceratops, because she is perhaps the most identifiable of these long extinct animals—sharing characteristics of the rhinoceros or the cow.
There is power in words. There is an echoing in my inmost desires that is only slaked by the proof that I have more words than a rival. Even than a friend. Maybe this comes from all the teachers, friends of parents and shocked passersby and their remarks. “I could never remember all those words.” “How can he pronounce all of those?” Maybe, conversely, I was already wired to be prideful at the mention of my great linguistic prowess, and the discovery of a science that offered a panoply of new words was too much to handle.
Clearly a five year old who knows the difference between Dromaeosaurus and Dilophosaurus (and can tell you which one he identifies with more) isn't your average five year old. But honestly, even now I'm somewhat tickled by it. Remembering how I failed to ever become more than a dabbler in that magic. I have the words, but I will never sit in the hot sun of Laiyang county, cracking rocks to their Cretaceous core and robbing their secrets. I won't get to lay these words out in front of lecture halls. Robert Bakker will never know my name.
The funniest thing, in retrospect, is how tame these words sound now. Diplodocus and Psittacosaurus, though not in the common lexicon, are stiff words with only one meaning, less rhythm and no poetry. The pangs of echolalia one suffers from too much time discussing our long-gone Terrible Lizards is also a little tedious. This is nerd knowledge. It's as useful as star wars trivia, or rote memorization of the first hundred digits of pi. It encourages knee-jerk criticism of movies in which Brachiosauridae are depicted dragging their tails, or which feature man-sized Velociraptors. There are probably entire message boards dedicated to a crusade to unmask and lambaste the purveyors of these cinematic tragedies.
But I just don't care anymore. Because these were the dreams of my youth, and they're as silly as dreaming of being a cowboy.
Of course, if I were a cowboy who got to ride a dinosaur, there would be nothing silly about that at all. Seriously.
posted by Maximillian @ 10:41 PM
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