In the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Black Knight, after having had all his limbs severed in a sword fight, announces, “All right, we’ll call it a draw.”
This Monty Python absurdist take on the King Arthur tale is funny, in a wincing way, yet we don’t laugh at all at someone who has been shoved down in the dirt by a schoolyard bully. We feel sympathy for the victim, and we collectively take a breath and hope for the victim to get up, dust off, and either confront the bully or walk away with dignity. In my life, I have been both the kid that got up to box the bully – sometimes with a purple eye that made it impossible to convince the schoolyard monitor that I hadn’t been fighting – but also the political pacifist tempting fate, and trying to keep the Black
Knight’s hubris as an inside joke and a comfort. I have also been the Kindergarten show-off turned inadvertent bully who, during recess, slid off of a see-saw with a girl on the other end. I’m guessing I was trying to impress her with my teasing cleverness and dexterity. The see-saw slammed to the ground and her butt with it. She cried and I, mortified as a child could be, and failing to find a place to hide, was admonished by the teacher. The girl got up, brushed herself off, and regained her pride as soon as the sting wore off. For me, every time I see a see-saw, the guilt returns. My childhood friend’s recovery is an example of the Sen technique of see-saw. See-saw implores us to get up, dust off, and get on with life. If it were only so easy when slamming your own pride to the ground. Every day, I try to become just a little more of the Black Knight in facing my own self-inflicted see-saws!
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