The univeral soldier was once very short

[sealwhiskers]

I have been thinking a lot over the last week and a half, living in my head. I do other things too, I write, I walk, I've proctored tests, I've hung out with friends and kissed the geek, but all along, there has been a part of me solidly living somewhere else. There has been so much anger, disappointment, on-the-fly solutions, musing from above or

Comments

[jophan]

Without knowing anything at all, I wonder whether the changes you perceive your father has gone through aren't similar to the rot that frequently sets in after a revolution has been won. For some people it's easy to do the right thing in adversity and conflict, but they fail miserably at being victorious.

[sealwhiskers]

Perhaps..I should have put in my post perhaps, that he isn't a bad man, certainly not for people coming from the outside in particular. There was just lots of shit happening that washed away those early years of his life so to speak.

[sealwhiskers]

You know..after sleeping on your comment, I must say that it holds some significant wisdom. I guess the word "rot" is perhaps too strong, but he *did* have difficulties adapting to the new country of abundance for many years. He often kept saying that the Swedes didn't know what they had, even if it would hit them in the ass, and things like that.

And he *was* successful in Sweden (he's very smart in a scientific sense), but he sort of always viewed those successes as him "tricking" the system and the authorities, not due to the fact that he had some brilliance. In certain senses he couldn't stop being the street kid, pillaging things from the ruins of Warsaw.

[sealwhiskers]

Good. This text should be read like that.

[tooticky]

asakiyume kind of got there first, but I do like the idea of bearing witness to at least one of the men your father has been, one that you like and respect. His courage to leave a dangerous country sound very real to me, and very poignant. I think I would feel proud of him, given what you've told us about him.

[sealwhiskers]

Yes, I am proud of that. He knew he would be called, because he even got a letter about it, they were gonna station him in Prague and he knew that there was a huge youth underground movement there that was stirring. A lot of people stayed and were forced to be murderers, but he took other steps.

[luvdovz]

I wish things could've been different between you and your dad.

I've been missing mine so much...

[sealwhiskers]

I probably would miss mine too if he was gone permanently. We are not logical creatures. I just wanted the post to be honest, which means that some things after the time I'm mentioning in this post made our relationship very complicated for a long time, and some dynamics in my family, over long stretches of time have created a situation where being together (or living nearby) is difficult. Today is still better than it has been in years, which I am grateful for.

[gale_storm]

A few of you may know what I mean by this.

*nod* Me, too.

I am most probably never going to have children and what I've written here, as an only child, and what my father or mother did or didn't do will fade into complete oblivion, but in my kinder moments when I am at peace, I tend to think that there will be others like me, like him, so alike that it will and it won't matter at the same time. And in my kinder moments I think that this won't be such a bad thing.

Understood and very much agreed. I'm not going to have children, and my sister killed herself because of our mother, so our mother will fade into oblivion, where she belongs.

[sealwhiskers]

Lovely Gale. I'll say something that I wasn't gonna in this post originally, but it's been on my mind for a lot of reason, my phrasings about "oblivion" being one result of that. A friend of mine had a baby last year and he was very proud and going on about it, I was amused and a little touched watching him, but suddenly he seemed to realize and remember (he's a fairly close friend) my own struggles with kids and that I've more or less settled into not having them. He is a science teacher and an atheist - very vocal in both these areas, and he had been going on jokingly about how he now "had put a mark on this world and his genetics would survive" (for some atheists this idea has replaced the Christian one about family and afterlife), and he got embarrassed and probably felt "sorry" for me or something, so he hurriedly added that except for genetics, people could make social and cultural marks on the world, and that was great too

[gale_storm]

Do Christians say that only those who have spawned will go to heaven? I would love to be able to kick them all in the arse, but I suppose God will do that in the end, anyway!

BTW, reading that a friend of yours had a baby last year at first makes the reader assume that you mean a woman, but that changes a bit later in the sentence!!! ;-) As a recent-spawner, he undoubtedly has ideas about having kids being super-duper-important. Still, who the hell cares about other people's genetics, anyway? If people do nothing *but* spawn, then they're all useless fuckwads. *shudder*

[sealwhiskers]

Well, in Genesis, god is claimed to have said "Go forth and multiply" (and added some really nasty passage about how sorrowful it will be, being a woman while doing so, after the shun from Eden).

In our culture, this has been taken very literally up until recently, and Christianity, along with other world religions have this big family myth going on. Family is basically sacred and by "family" it is always meant man+woman+bunch of children+other blood relatives.

And my friend is a science teacher with a biology/math background. Some atheists with such a background, who are active in atheist forums (like he is), have a bit of a genetic pride fixation. It sort of seems to me, to having replaced religion in its strive for immortality. He is just more open and honest about it, and claims it is a "biological fact" that humans strive for the constant survival of the species down to the individual level. I am not sure I agree with him, but it's probably true for some, like himself.