My father never beat his children. He never criticized us behind our backs. He did, however, have a temper. It struck almost every time I visited him, and he had no control over it—or perhaps he simply never tried to exert control. Whatever the case, once the tremors started, the volcano invariably erupted. By the time the cinders died away, he was surrounded by miles upon miles of ash. The family did our best not to take this personally, but at the same time, we stopped visiting the scorched lands around him. We kept our distance; child, wife, and brother. His anger ruined his ties to us. Before I was even a teenager, I saw this. I saw that anger could destroy people, and I vowed that I wouldn't let myself become like that. For years, I held to this promise, too. I held to it so well, in fact, that by the time I graduated from high school, I was convinced that I couldn't get angry. I believed that I was beyond it.
My Junior year of college, though, something happened. I was walking home from school, and along the way, I had to cross M.L.K., an insanely busy road at that hour. Sometimes, I had to wait on my side for five or six minutes before I could cross. This time, however, ten minutes passed. And then fifteen. I started pacing up and down the length of the road. My breathing was forced. My thoughts were interrupted by static, the buzz slowly mounting into a roar. This was a feeling I'd had many times before, but it wasn't until that moment that I recognized what it was: this was anger. Maybe I never yelled. Maybe I never cursed others. But I was angry. I'd just been pretending like it wasn't there.
This marked a turning point for me. Up until then, I'd been struggling to find out “who I am.” A lot of teenagers go through this, and I can't say my search was any different. I watched movies and read books, and afterwords I'd admire certain characters and want to be like them. Other times, I'd model myself after people that I actually knew. In either case, it was problematic. I could try to act like them, sure, but I could never fully embody these other personalities. Always, in some moment of weakness or neglect, I'd revert to my old ways.
When I recognized that I was getting angry like my father, it was the first time I glimpsed an aspect of the fundamental me. This wasn't a characteristic that I had tried to cultivate. In fact, it was one that I actively suppressed. But it was there, and it was all the more undeniable for it ability to withstand suffocation. After that, I found more of these traits. There was my intellectual curiosity and it's corresponding argumentativeness. There was my sensitivity to other people's opinions which drove me between periods of extroversion and wounded isolation. There was even the way I looked, the way I carried myself, the way I gesticulated or charmed others. All of these things I could trace back to my father and mother.
I could look at my brother and sisters and see the same thing. Each of us was different, but there was obvious heredity at work. Aspects of our parents were sliced, diced, and stewed together in novel ways, each of us a strange alchemy of body and personality. This isn't unusual. When I meet the parents of my friends, I see the same process at work. People tend to get offended when I point this out, perhaps because so many of us have tried so hard to distance ourselves from our roots. It's not an ugly thing, though. It means that there is something deep inside us which is real, which is immutable, which is us. I've come to call this soul.
It is our blood and our upbringing. It is the union of sperm and egg, as well as the soft impressions left on a young mind. Nature and nurture. There is no conflict here. Both are given to us by our parents. Both were given to them by their parents. This is the heredity of soul. It is a chain that can be traced back through generations. I have seen a daguerreotype of my great-great-grandfather, and staring back at me are my nose and my brow. I have heard my grandmother tell stories of her father, and I see in his actions the same choices that I would make, whether I would be proud of them or not.
This is the first time I've been known as Timothy. This is not the first time I've lived.
I adore this entry. I'm (at 28) finally digging my way out of that classic existential crisis, and found this comforting. Because you're right--even as chameleons, we retain inherent traits from our parents and upbringing.
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought it'd be so grounding to acknowledge our roots? I've often wondered what compels American youth to distance themselves from their parents, anyway. I can come up with two explanations:
ReplyDelete1) They compare their parents to the adults featured in movies and television, and since their parents fall short of this vision, they categorically dismiss them as failures. Instead, they turn to these fictional characters as role-models. In the process, they discover they can't live up these idealized standards, either. They become disenheartened and then eventually return to their parents' model. Or to booze.
2) American materialism is an elaborate show of status. Parents who can't afford to propel their children into popularity with fashionable clothes, trendy toys, or athletic training reveal their failure at the American game. Wanting to do better themselves, these children reject their parents' values in an attempt to create a better model. With no role-model, however, these children discover themselves struggling to achieve even what their parents did.