Segments of Life

This is an excerpt of some of my other work in which I attempt to find the balance of life through the visualization of the way society views life and how it should be lived. This is by no means a finished work, but I have been working at it as I, myself, come to terms with and face the situations I have decided to explore.

-"Life, Philosophy, and Rhetoric

 Part One: Everyday Life

What is humanity?

What is fatherhood?

What is family?

These three questions have passed through my thoughts several times throughout the course of my life, and have made a nasty habit of coming to the surface more so in the past month. The days pass, and as they do, I come no closer to finding the answers to these questions, and my frustration grows. How does a man who was raised to be as sharp as a well maintained blade, as unfeeling as a rock, learn to feel? How to find a balance when the carefully constructed world he has clung to for his entire existence comes crashing down? The closer I find myself coming to an answer, the faster it goes spiraling away.

This is not a narrative of my life, nor that of anyone else, but merely the observations and conjectures that manifest themselves within the core of every human being’s psyche as they develop and move further through their life. I may present examples from my own life, or examples from the lives of those I have observed, and from the lives and experiences of those that I have grown close to and apart from over the years. This series of writing contains the essence of the lives we all lead, the lies we tell, and the truths we accept. I will attempt to be as unbiased on the content of this as possible, but I feel that I may end up placing one or two of my own thoughts and beliefs within this essay.

The first question is humanity. What is it? Humanity is taught to all people as the guiding internal compass between right and wrong. Over the centuries of mankind’s existence, our views of humanity have shifted and changed. To one person, humanity is the ability to accept the facts of life for what they are, and to guide their own life by that principle. To another, humanity is merely donating to the nearest charity, then going to a coffee shop, and posting on a self-righteous blog about how their own life is horrible as they sip a large mocha which the very people they donated money to assist are exploited. There is not a clear answer to humanity, and as one who was raised to be unfeeling and emotionless, accepting my own humanity has been something I’ve grappled with for as long as I can remember. I can only speculate from my own experiences, but I have observed that humanity has a much deeper meaning, and a more subtle impact than anyone would be willing to admit. Humanity as I have observed goes through several steps, and several forms, ranging from simple compliance with custom and tradition because it has been unchanging since the dawn of time, to the view of trying to break the mold and differentiate one’s self from the masses. It stretches from emotion; anger, fear, sadness, happiness, indifference; to the subtle things we do within our own lives that have far reaching consequences that generate the very crossroads we face in our own lives, and the lives of others inadvertently. The concept of humanity leads to my next question.

What is fatherhood? What does it mean, and what does it entail? Fatherhood is often a title for one who has both procreated and conceived a child of their own, but it has also been given to those who guide the lives of others, sharing their wisdom and experiences with the next generation in hopes of aiding them in their own lives and to prevent them from making the same mistakes. A friend once said that fatherhood was one of our baser instincts, a drive to ensure the survival of our own bloodlines through the ages. Another said it was a part of life, the part where we face the most of life’s trials, and the part of life where our lives begin to turn towards their end. That being said, I honestly do not understand why more people who have become a father choose not to take a part in the lives of their children, choosing to either remain anonymous, or to send a check in the mail every month while they live life as it was before parenthood. Once more, I remind myself that this is not to express my apathy towards mankind for its behavior, but merely a narrative and prompt to direct my thoughts on the subject in a non-partial manner. I, myself, am a fledgling father, and honestly I will admit that the idea of parenthood both scares, and intrigues me. I will begin guiding another, a continuation of my own flesh and blood, to their fate while attempting to ensure that the legacy I leave behind is one I can be proud of.

My final prompt for this literary work is the concept of family, how it has deteriorated over the years, and how many try to create an illusion of function when faced with certain dysfunction. Long ago, family was one of the most treasured concepts, and many families had made it a point to stick together, no matter what, going as far as creating an ancestral home and remaining in it through the generations. In the age of the internet, social networking, and information on demand, it has become less common to spend time together as a family, rather than focus on the latest global news, or to drown out the surrounding world in music. Many escape into the virtual world of video-games, remaining ignorant to the smaller, more subtle changes in the world around them. How does mankind continue to slide further into this trend, when it has made several attempts to limit progress? The answer is quite simple, actually. It has been predicted that no matter what the challenge, mankind will progress and evolve around the problem, overcoming it and becoming increasingly superior. But when does progress turn to regression? How does one control the rate they progress at? These are startling concepts, and there currently is not an answer because each individual progresses at their own rate, some quicker, others, slower. Progress has a direct correlation with family, because as we progress, the concept of family becomes broader, and harder to distinguish between friends who are incredibly close, and those who share your genetics.

I will still grapple with my own humanity, and with my concepts of fatherhood and family, as I have grown from the very root of dysfunction, and I pray that I may never subject my own children to it, even with the most false of hope. As some would say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but to conclude this, the statement is indeed one of the harshest facts of life. Everything we are is everything we’ve already done, our choices are our anchors, and our will is our driving force. When our will drives us to become better than we are, we will rise to the occasion, and when our will drives us to betray mankind, we are the ones who drive the knife into each other’s backs. While this fact does not give one much hope, at the same time, it illuminates the world around us, allowing us to see the flow of our decisions and the ripples of our choices with greater clarity.

Part Two: Relationship Rhetoric

                How is it that we can tell when we are truly suffering and “heart-broken”? Suffering is a conceptual fact that when one has endured a certain hardship, that they are broken and changed permanently. But why do we allow these hardships to change who we are on a fundamental level? The changes occur because the hardship tests our resolve, challenges our ideals, and ultimately forces us to swallow the bitter pill of being wrong about our perceptions. The challenge in life to end suffering is not to go without trying new things out of fear of being hurt, but to embrace the newfound knowledge of being wrong about our ideas, because then we can formulate new ideas and test them. The very same principle is found in the scientific method that scientists use to determine if their own theories and hypotheses are true, or if it is false.

                The source of hardship is not hard to find, because it is usually where we see through hindsight that our fortune had changed."-

Things are still a bit rough with it, and these are the earlier version of these conceptual pieces, so please, I strongly advise that you do not see these as my outlook on life, but rather as an objective description as an outsider would see it. 

-"Shade"