The Servants of Silence IX: Dent Sheffelbein
Words: 1030
Rating: G. Suitable for all audiences.
Dent Sheffelbein
One thing that can be said of Dent Sheffelbein, he knew the rules. Another thing that can be said is that Dent Sheffelbein was confused, when the rules didn’t apply.
Some would say that Dent’s confusion was borne of the fact that he was well into his eighties, and he—like all humans—regressed back into the cocoon of life where life had been clear to him. While I didn’t know Dent in his thirties, and for much of his forties, I can tell you that confusion plagued him for much of his life.
One of the most profound things that Dent ever said to me was: “I don’t know how you can see the world so clearly. The world has always been so muddled to me.” My first thought was how difficult that must have been to admit to a person so much younger than he. Then I realized how much it said about Dent Sheffelbein and how it clarified so much of what he did and said throughout his life.
Dent spent much of his life trying to avoid the responsibility of decision making. He was always looking for the rules. He was always looking for someone, anyone to clarify the rules for him so he wouldn’t have to solely rely on his resources in the decision making process.
The man had both of his parents die on him before he reached nineteen years old. He was adrift in a sea of confident people on the rise. He lost his rudder in life when his Dad died in a boating accident. Life came up and told him that he had better start dealing with all the abstracts of life, because no one was going to help him through the chaos and confusion of life.
His Dad had presumably given him the rules on what it takes to be an adult, but once adulthood was slammed into his face, he realized he hadn’t been listening. He realized he had been a normal, rebellious teen who lived with the idea that his father was full of beans, and before he could turn around and see the fruit of fatherly advice, his Father left him.
The Korean War was a blessing in disguise for Dent. It provided him the direction that military provided. It gace him purpose and structure in a life that was otherwise adrift. He could be a number that followed direction in life as a military soldier. He could avoid taking responsibility for the decisions of his life in the military. He could be adrift in the sea of life without consequences with another telling him when to row and how steer in a particular direction, and he could do what everyone else was doing without the introspection independent decision making usually procures. Conformity is expected in the military, and Dent liked doing what was expected of him. He liked the rules. It helped him fit in. In the military you are, largely, a faceless cog in the wheel. You can do things to better your standing in the military, you can stand out, but you can also fall back into the ranks with all the other fellas and be faceless.
Dent chose the latter. He never wanted people looking at him for any reason. To seek such attention was anethma to Dent. Odd activity leads to one being called an oddball. It leads to people looking at you and seeing all of your warts. Why would anyone consciously pursue that?
When I proposed that Dent write a few things down about his life for his legacy, for his Grandchildren, he returned: “When I die, I just want to be forgotten.”
Returning from the Korean War, Dent stood in a line of soldiers who were trying to decide what they wanted to do for a living. This decision was going to shape his adulthood and the many others who would be reliant on Dent for sustenance. He didn’t have his Father to consult him, and he forgot to seek advice from anyone around him in life, so he turned to the guy who just filled out an application confidently:
“What did you select?” Dent asked the man.
“Tool and Die,” the man said.
“Is that a good profession?”
“You get to work with your hands,” the man returned. “I like working with my hands, and it’s better than sitting in an office.”
Dent decided that the man had a well thought out rationale that would suit him, so he signed up for Tool and Die. He would remain in this profession, no matter how tedious the work, for the next thirty-eight years. He liked the rules of the profession. There was no need for creativity in Tool and Die. There was no confusion. He knew what to expect each day that he went into work, and they knew what to expect of him. The rules were easy to learn, and the profession gave him structure and purpose, and he sank himself into his work to such a degree that he didn’t think he could do anything else. Tool and Die didn’t call for thinking outside the box. You arrived, you did the work, you ate lunch, and you went home. Rules, structure, purpose, lucky to have a job, and now you’re a man by most definitions.
Dent fell backwards into a situation that provided him a wife and a kid. This provided Dent an urgent need to gain some clarification about life, because he knew that kid was going to ask. Dent knew conformity. He may not have known too much about life or how to succeed within it, but he knew how to fit in. He knew how to avoid wearing the wrong clothes and saying the wrong things. He knew how to go to all the right places and practice certain principles in life. This kid may have grown to believe that much of these ideas were screwy, but the kid had to learn these ideas before he came to such a conclusion. Dent taught that young kid everything he knew about how to get along in the world, and that kid took that foundation of logic and went forth into nonconformity. Dent was horrified by this for much of his life. He never wanted a kid of his to become an oddball, but that kid could’ve never been an oddball if he didn’t know the rules, and Dent knew the rules…even if he was confused by most of that which fell outside it.
