I was speaking to someone about children. He'd gone on about how children are not but a blank slate, clean parchment waiting for the swirling stains of paternal, or some other, knowledge. My wife disagreed, mentioning something about how there is "a spark" within a child, that they are more than simple, or poorly, worded copies, of copies, of copies, etc.

I'm not sure where I sit on this debate, though it's certainly not with the former.

Somehow this reminded me of a discussion I had with a different friend, I believe about Lacan. Though I've never read Lacan, and whether the ideas I have of Lacanian thought are even remotely on point, that conversation has gone to seed. The notion that it is not within us but, rather, lies intertwined in all of our actions, our interactions, a sunset, our favorite chair, the way the air smells, a breeze - that we are not it, but that we are nothing without it, has blown my short and curlies back.

That was poorly written.

Just a beautiful thought. I imagine strings, or veins (synapses?), shooting out from each of us in every direction, and from every thing, and as I walk, or sit, or breathe, I am constantly brushing into another set of strings from an innumerable amount of things that make that moment, and that moment is me...

...ah fuck it. This all to say, "We're not blank slates." Time to go read some Lacan.