How much should you blame somebody for his culture, for his roots, and how much should you put on the individual? What are we made of? Are we what we accumulate through self-exercise, practice, human interaction, or are we just simple carriers of the place where we come from? I'm not even asking about the role of biology - I know how much we act as our hormones dictate us, but now I wonder solely about what we are, not what we do.
I know somebody who seems to have the patriarchal attitudes so deeply implanted in him that they became his skeleton, the axis around which he is built and shaped. What is left if you take out what you were taught to be? Do you become less or more? Or simply different, but too different to be able to recognize yourself in the mirror? As a matter of fact, CAN you remove this part?
What was I raised to be? A good wife, a good mother, a good professional? For what role were they preparing me? For nothing specific... they were just raising somebody who should feel happy with him/herself and this would be it. Should I blame my grandfather for giving me the entire freedom to choose? Should I consider that him and my grandmother haven't done their jobs properly, since I do not see in myself anything they voluntarily planted there? Or is it quite the opposite, since they didn't shove anything down my throat, but only gently touched my soul?
I look at the things I value the most - freedom, respect for life and nature, love for animals and everything alive, non-interference in other people's life - and I do not recognize them as being put there by my grandparents. Some I feel as being borrowed, because I admired and respected them at my grandpa, but I am aware of the fact that he never tried to make me become like him. I am, just like anybody else, built around these ideas - but I do not feel as an artifact or some weird sort of cyborg, I feel them as being me, as being what I wanted, chose and decide to leave there. There are many others small reflexes that I have for growing up where I did, and I know they are memories of my childhood and I try to keep them quiet, not to make them the backbone of what I am.
Maybe we actually take from home whatever fits us best. Maybe that is why I took freedom and he took patriarchy - this is what fits us best. Maybe it is not a matter of what we either consciously choose or we simply take, but it is a matter of how flexible we are, of how much we love our frames of existence or we are willing to change them, according to what life has to offer us. Maybe there are non-negotiable, irreconcilable differences between people and no matter how much you love, you simply cannot be with the other. It doesn't matter whether you blame the other or the place he is coming from.. what matters is that you cannot be more than you are. There is a French saying, that you cannot ask even from the most beautiful girl more than she can offer. Maybe it is as simple as this, and all the rest is just for those prone to philosophy - you cannot be more than you are, you cannot become what makes you unhappy no matter how much you love.
I know somebody who seems to have the patriarchal attitudes so deeply implanted in him that they became his skeleton, the axis around which he is built and shaped. What is left if you take out what you were taught to be? Do you become less or more? Or simply different, but too different to be able to recognize yourself in the mirror? As a matter of fact, CAN you remove this part?
What was I raised to be? A good wife, a good mother, a good professional? For what role were they preparing me? For nothing specific... they were just raising somebody who should feel happy with him/herself and this would be it. Should I blame my grandfather for giving me the entire freedom to choose? Should I consider that him and my grandmother haven't done their jobs properly, since I do not see in myself anything they voluntarily planted there? Or is it quite the opposite, since they didn't shove anything down my throat, but only gently touched my soul?
I look at the things I value the most - freedom, respect for life and nature, love for animals and everything alive, non-interference in other people's life - and I do not recognize them as being put there by my grandparents. Some I feel as being borrowed, because I admired and respected them at my grandpa, but I am aware of the fact that he never tried to make me become like him. I am, just like anybody else, built around these ideas - but I do not feel as an artifact or some weird sort of cyborg, I feel them as being me, as being what I wanted, chose and decide to leave there. There are many others small reflexes that I have for growing up where I did, and I know they are memories of my childhood and I try to keep them quiet, not to make them the backbone of what I am.
Maybe we actually take from home whatever fits us best. Maybe that is why I took freedom and he took patriarchy - this is what fits us best. Maybe it is not a matter of what we either consciously choose or we simply take, but it is a matter of how flexible we are, of how much we love our frames of existence or we are willing to change them, according to what life has to offer us. Maybe there are non-negotiable, irreconcilable differences between people and no matter how much you love, you simply cannot be with the other. It doesn't matter whether you blame the other or the place he is coming from.. what matters is that you cannot be more than you are. There is a French saying, that you cannot ask even from the most beautiful girl more than she can offer. Maybe it is as simple as this, and all the rest is just for those prone to philosophy - you cannot be more than you are, you cannot become what makes you unhappy no matter how much you love.
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