As I watch my child grow and develop into a functioning, self-sufficient person, I learn so much more about myself and my own growth. Lately I've been ruminating over this: "the domestication of humans" from a book that I read in my acting class during my first, and only, full year of college at UMASS Boston. Now 11 years later, I still use this book often as a reminder of the perception shift that I must undergo on a continuous basis in order to not become jaded and blinded by the veil of "reality" that we can so easily succumb to in the routine flow of daily life on this planet. What I mean is that it is easy to just go through life, following the laws, guidelines, and rules put in place before us as "reality" or "truth", without questioning or examining them personally in order to find the reasons behind them, or if they are truly "right" for us individually. In this book, The Four Agreements, we are reminded that we are born with the capacity to learn and then are taught how to learn, how to live, and how to be a "proper", functioning part of our society. Some choose to rebel against this as they get older, become part of an alternate/underground or rebellious group, or just deviate from the "norm" while others fall in line and question nothing throughout life. There are extreme cases on both sides as well as a middle road, and we see them each day as we walk down the street, in the various "types" of people we come in contact with. This book tells of the way we focus our attention on what people teach us as children, and how it shifts our perception, our view of the world and how it works, depending on what mom, dad, siblings, teachers, religions, or the media point us toward. From the book: "Adults hooked our attention and put information into our minds through repetition. That is the way we learned everything we know." We are domesticated, programmed, conditioned to live a certain way. Watching how Harmony follows and mimics us, and how she stores the words we teach her one by one, it's amazing to see a person being built, a memory being stocked with bits of info by those around her. If I tell her that a bird is a horse, she will absolutely believe me. She will continue to learn through us, until she has the ability to read and learn whatever she chooses, and further develop her own intuition and conscience to decide what her path in life will be. As I teach my child how to live, like any parent, I worry that I'm telling her who to be, how to perceive the world, how to socialize or behave, and that I may be guiding her in the wrong direction or not disciplining enough, or disciplining too much, or not in the right way... there is so much to think about, so I just try not to over think it and say, "well, she'll be whoever she is, and no matter what I teach her, she'll learn differently out there in the wide world, and I can only be here to support, love and offer advice along her personal journey/path through life, but I can't force anyone to think the way that I do." But we DO have so much to do with who these little creatures become, and as I think back on my life and my "guides" and teachers, I am thankful for the support, love and advice that I was given, yet always had the choice of how to live and decisions to make about what was right or wrong for me personally, though even now as a adult, it can still be hard to be an individual and stand up for what I personally believe or choose. Children are completely uninhibited until you tell them that IT'S NOT OKAY. We allow small kids to scream, cry, ask outrageous questions, or run around naked in public because it's natural and normal, because it can't be controlled as they don't know any better. Yet as they grow up, we say that it's not okay anymore, because they need to conform to society, to fit in, to sit and be quiet, to be modest and cover their private parts, to be politically correct in the questions they ask and the statements they make. In our society we tend to teach kids to become inhibited and to follow rules or memorize scholastic information more than to develop their own intuition or moral stance from a deep and personal place within themselves. With this kind of rule-based teaching, once the watchful eyes are lifted from them, they may find it difficult to actually stand on their own two feet with conviction and a strong belief system of their own which will keep them grounded or focused on achieving their own personal goals. Instead, when they are thrown out into the "real" world after school, many young adults seem jaded, confused, aimless or drifting with no apparent direction, as I have felt at times. Now, as an adult, I'm not as free as a child, I can't get naked on the beach here, I won't scream in a church, I won't ask a random stranger in line at the grocery store "DO YOU KILL PEOPLE?" -a question a small boy asked my dad once. No, we become inhibited (some people more than others) thinking we need alcohol or drugs to make us uninhibited (like we were in our natural state as children). In an ancient book, a wise man encouraged people to "become like little children" and I think it's a great charge. I don't feel like my true self and I don't feel free when I don't speak my mind, when I'm not honest, or openly expressing myself consistently. I need to do these things, no matter what the risks may be or who disapproves, and I need people in my life who do so as well. My great hope is that, by my own example, I can teach my child to hold onto a child-like heart and view throughout her life, and to follow her heart and intuition with no inhibition.
From Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" :
Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.
-Thanks to my friend Psalm for sharing this poem with me. ;)
So Good!
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