Only when...

Only when I became a parent I realized how much crap is being passed from generation to generation. Things that are taken as "normal" facts of life when seen from one perspective only - the way parents talk to children, the way children are trained and conditioned, relationships and implicit toxicity, all that "it's for your own good" stuff. It's only when being watched from the other side it is obvious why some adults are the way they are - aggression, greed, selfishness, egocentrism, dishonesty... And actually it takes more than at least two points of view, after all my parents had the same thing, and yet it is only in my generation that somehow I am able to attain slightly deeper understanding. Not necessarily trying to rebel against the old ways, but seeing them as they are and what they do - when children are "told to behave", "not to be naughty", compare themselves to others and join the race, eat sugar as reward for something, trade services to get some attention and appreciation from parents... No wonder we are collectively like a big, dysfunctional family. No wonder things are the way they are. And, most of all, no wonder why they are going to continue, unless there is a conscious effort involved, effort to understand and break our patters of behavior. Patterns being reacting to stimulus in automatic way. Finding that pause is finding freedom from our inner prison, and I think that should be considered prior to breaking out of our outer prison of money, government and violence. After all isn't the world our creation? There is no cosmic oppressor telling us to fight each other. There is no monster requiring sacrifices. There are no gods, kings and masters. There are only other people and most of them do not want to fight, kill, be killed... And yet we still have wars, poverty, etc, because we stopped being innocent children at some point and we tried to be like our parents.

The other day I asked my son to get dressed. He said no. I asked kindly. We were late and he just... he should have listened. So I asked one more time, and one more time... Each time louder. Each time he said no. His reasons were different then mine. Mine, I thought, were more important. So I inhaled deeply preparing to shout, frustrated, late, quite miserable really, and then I paused and instead I said "I'm proud of you" - I laughed and all that low energy of frustration and aggression just went away, dissipated, banished. It wasn't that important after all to get dressed now. And it's not a race either, not a contest... Not a thing I could win, but if I exploded we would both have lost. And after that it didn't take long to negotiate truce, agree on course of action, get dressed eventually and leave to do what needed to be done.

Bringing up a little anarchist is going to be both frustrating and extremely rewarding I suspect. But hey, freedom of humankind starts with not being a tyrant at home.