My son is taking a Philosophy course--his first college course ever. I may not survive it. My brain may explode first. He is thinking about all the questions I have been trying all my life to avoid thinking about.
I said to him yesterday, "I was thinking about what Descartes said. But tell me what you think about this: 'I stink, therefore I am.' So, if you can smell me, would that be proof that I exist?"
He told me, in his most withering way, he did not think so.
Also, in order to talk to my son now, I need to know Latin. If I ask for a translation, I get the eye roll and the sigh that says, "Mom, don't you know anything?" It is doubly humiliating if his father is involved in the discussion. Then it's two eye rolls, two sighs.
The mistake I make is, when the discussion gets above my head, instead of shutting up, I start trying to crack jokes.
Puteo ergo sum.
2 comments:
Mom,
I think it's awesome you figured out how to say "I stink, therefore I am" in Latin. And don't worry, my brain's been doing some work of its own.
I wondered if pueto ergo sum meant I stink in Latin. Good to be affirmed by a philosophy student, who seems, after all, to appreciate his mother.
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