In Defense of the Same 1/4

Next

In Defense of the Same

By Hammon Peal, Ph.D.

A schoolmate once said to me that he had discovered something new. I said to him &quot;there is no discovery&quot;, and he became quite angry. I asked him what we had discovered, and when he showed me I laughed at him. We were young men, in school at the time, and I had the bluntness that youth brings, so you will forgive me my laughter.

&quot;I have devised,&quot; he said, &quot;A new means of sending messages to the women.&quot;

It was a strict place, our school, and we were monitored for proper behavior. My friend sought the favor of a girl named Yelena. They traded encrypted messages on the terminals until the headmasters closed his access, forcing him to more primitive means.

&quot;Observe,&quot; said my friend. &quot;A stick, of particular thickness. I wrap a strip of paper around it, like so, then write my message across it lengthwise with this pen. Then I unravel the strip, like so.&quot;

&quot;Ahh,&quot; said I.

&quot;And you see, only one who knows the particular thickness of the stick may re-wrap it, and read the message. All others see only a useless strip of paper with scratches on it. Clever, is it not?&quot;

&quot;Very clever,&quot; said I. &quot;But not a discovery.&quot;

He puffed his chest and said: &quot;Who would think of such a thing? Many can write programs or encryption algorithms, but it takes a true mind to think this far afield!&quot;

I laughed, and I took down a book from my shelf, and showed him the scytales of the Romans: men thousands of years past who used the same techniques. His face was red.

&quot;They did it first,&quot; I said. &quot;And probably others before them.&quot;

Then I showed him the pictures from the walls of the Roman cathouses, preserved in pigment and stone to be discovered thousands of years later. Men and women entwined in a thousand carnal ways.

&quot;They did that first as well,&quot; I said. &quot;You break no new ground with Yelena.&quot;

I showed him the cape and cowls of the headmasters of the pre-Ancient abbeys; so much like the ornamented jackets and hoods of our own headmasters. The mathematical equations of the ancient scholars of the Little Bump, still taught to us now with virtually no changes.

&quot;There is no discovery,&quot; I said. &quot;Only endless re-discovery. The turning of the wheel around and around again. Our ancestors tread the same ground that we now tread, and our children will tread it too. It is all the same. Why do you struggle so to pretend it's different?&quot;

He scoffed and said, &quot;And what have you done? 'Same, same, never changing, always the same.' It's a gray prison of sameness you live in. Why do you hate life so?&quot;

I realized that he was wrong: I love life. And I knew which of us was truly in prison.