Mischief

I like mischief.  I always have.  It’s not a virtue, I know.  As I get older, I don’t seem to be settling down, but I do notice that my mischief is changing a bit.  Years ago, I was more prone to do something that would make another person uncomfortable, or even hurt their feelings.  I wasn’t really bad, but in all honesty, I was not very good either.  Now, as I’m exercising much more control in my thoughts and actions, I am finding that my mischief had changed from manic malicious to simply silly.

When I was a very young boy, my grandfather used to tease me by setting up my stuffed animals in some kind of silly scene.  One of his more popular setups would involve a plush alligator with a bright red flannel mouth.  He would move the alligator to the corner of the bed and put the corner of the duvet in its mouth.  When I would stumble on this scene in my room, it would send me giggling into an imaginary world of daydreams and fantasies where plush alligators would fly with me to other planets where duvets were grown and we would together devour the whole crop.  My grandfather’s mischief brought a lot of silly fun.

Somewhere in between then and now, I explored a lot of other kinds of mischief.  I tasted nearly every offering on the after dinner mischief cart.  I had a lot of wild times doing so.  But the cost of those experiences was quite high and I grew tired of having to fork over so much energy for my thrills.  Maybe I just got tired or maybe I jut got wiser, I’m not sure either is true, but it’s the logical explanation.  Whatever the reason, I ended up agreeing with my grandfather and the alligator and found less and less use for the drunkard and the fools.

A while ago, I was giving private English lessons to a student.  I was experimenting with using the Dhammapada as the text to learn vocabulary.  I remember clearly getting to the Mischief chapter.

‘Do not make light of your failings,
Saying, “What are they to me?”
A jug fills drop by drop.
So the fool becomes brimful of folly.

Do not belittle your virtues,
Saying, “They are nothing.”
A jug fills drop by drop.
So the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.’
                                                - Dhammapada

 

“Brimful” is not a word we use much in English, but my student wanted a definition and naturally it was not in the translation dictionary.  In order to explain “brimful”, I set an empty glass on the desk.  Making a funny sad clown face, I made a little dance and song about “empty”.  I poured some water into the glass and made another song about “some” – ho hum, but I got some, at least I got some so not so ho hum.  I poured more water into the glass so that it was full.  Another song about “full” drove the point home.  I poured the water so that it was just a tiny bit more than the glass could hold.  “Brimful” was quite an extraordinary character.  To this day she remembers “empty”, “some”, “full”, and maybe “brimful”.

Later that day, I probably went out for another night of shenanigans.  I probably got very drunk.  I might have toyed with the mind of a naïve backpacker or tickled the underbelly of some other sordid scenario.  I can’t remember what mischief I got into that night.  But I will always remember the brimful character from earlier that day.

I admit, goofing around during English lessons is pretty tame compared to some of the things I get myself into, but I think it’s a good illustration of how avoiding mischief doesn’t mean not having fun.