In our late octogenarian musings, we have often analogized our ancient condition to a used automobile, viz., worn joints, slow mobility, and the frequent need for service. At times, we see ourselves as an old “Chevy,” needing frequent mechanical service, and, for some of our contemporaries, a change of parts.
In this conceptual analogy, we have had the exotic experience of perceiving a mundane television commercial as having an unintended and unexpected metaphysical significance. The relevant advertisement relates to an automobile service that offers the service of determining whether an apparently shiny, new auto offered for sale has previously been in a damaging collision. The advertiser styles the offered service “Carfax” and presents an alert car fox who utters, “Give me the carfax (car facts) ” relative to its possible history of an automobile offered for sale as “new”, despite its having empirically sustained a collision.
As declared, we were somehow inspired to conceptualize the commercial as symbolic of a humanistic message concerning our perceptive appraisal of others with whom we interactively relate. The commercial advertiser offers for sale its investigative services to determine the possible existence of an accident-damaged automobile, deceitfully offered for sale at full price. Analogously, as interactive members of society, are we responsibly obliged to consider the possibility of human trauma in the societally pleasant smile of others? Pragmatically missing is a smart and discernible fox to guide us in our appraisal of others, appropriately deservant of empathic consideration.
Anecdotally, as unsophisticated young first generation American children growing up in the immigrant ambience of the 1940’s Brooklyn, we regularly witnessed the elements of past trauma and struggle, reflected in the time-worn, tragic faces of the elder generation bearing personal histories of suffering from European antisemitism and severe economic privation; regarding which troubles apparently seem to make their enduring imprint, notwithstanding their occasionally smiling face.
The readily available inclination to such perceptive sensitivity was implicitly imprinted on our psyche, maintaining its enduring cognitive application in our contemporary interactions; the outward stimulus for the caution being, anecdotally, less readily apparent and discernible.
In our view, successful societal life mandates an appropriate awareness and sensitive consideration of the experiential history of other societal members regarding the possibility of past challenges and their sublimina. endurance, as analogously illustrated in the contextual television commercial.
-p.
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