Aloha Jeffrey,
Ah yes.... children in a large family seem to be acutely aware of "my fair share".
Well, it is not at all about fairness for me. The issue is recognizing my family is deeply dysfunctional, and any involvement with them only leads of my suffering. The point of me expressing that is for those few who contemplatives who might recognize similar social patterns in their family or origin.
I speak from experience! Parents should constantly keep the balance, but they
don't. Why?
As a parent I was acutely aware of not playing favorites with my children, and treating them equally; however, fairness is often hard to do in parenting.
In my family of origin there was a profound discrepancy between how I was treated, and how my 2 older siblings were treated all of the way to the end. In fact looking back I see how my mother cast me as the "demon seed" in the family; and I was cast into the roll by them until their end, even though I am the one who took up a sober, contemplative life when I was 21, and put myself through school and I had a 40 year technical career; whereas, one of my sisters was a career drug addict, and pathological lair; however, my parents never recognized either realities.
Personally, I believe it has to do with a parents peer group culture. Sons are
usually unfairly stressed to "harden" them. If parents are "hardened" by war,
poverty, death and most important, no love, then they will think the best
course is to double down on their children.
This may have been at work in part for both of my parents, because they were both raised on the farm, during the depression, and worked hard to get off the farm and through college, then they worked hard on their careers, and neither of them had it that easy, at least until the 50s.
On the other hand, another aspect of my parent's psychoses was they were both super-achievers in their respective disciplines; and it seems obvious now, that neither of them would tolerate excellence in their own children. Since both of my older sisters did not excel at anything, and do not appear to have been geniuses, then there was no threat of them ever showing up either of the parents. Since I was a genius and hard working, and determined to excel at whatever I applied myself to, then I was a threat to both of my parents world-view of self-excellence.
Of course... pure abuse and outright evil, lie in the wings under such circumstances.
Yes, there was "pure abuse and outright evil" on the part of my mother, who appears to have done everything she could to bring me down, short of killing me. My father was just profoundly negligent; however, behind his negligence, I believe, was a determination to obstruct me in everything I turned my hand to, short of criminal activity.
"Unpacking", as you say, beings, is complex.
Someone with an analytical mind will suffer trying to reason it out.
So it goes!
You are correct here. For decades I thought surely there was a rational reason for the abuse and neglect that I received from my parents; however, I realized more than a decade ago, that trying to find a rational for irrational behavior is an exercise in futility.
Jeffrey, you seem to have benefited from your parents "over hardening"
of you. What little I've observed of your actions, shows me a man who
"walks to his own song".
I would not go so far as to suggest that the abuse and neglect that I received from my family was good for me. I think it is better to say that I succeeded where my parents failed to ruin me with their greatest efforts to do so.
Somehow you've cleaved your way through
life without loosing your ability to love existence. If a being isn't
full of love, nothing will they offer to existence. This "empty" being is
not you Jeffrey Brooke. What you have, you offer! Where did that
come from? Beings are defined by their actions. So?
Well, as I see it through direct experience is The Four ‘Houses of God’ (Brahma Viharas) of Buddhism are not something that one intentionally cultivates, but are propertied of an enlightened person, so that the enlightened would simply manifest them: Loving Kindness, Brotherly Love or Philos, Metta; Compassion, Karuna; Sympathetic Joy, Mudita; Equanimity, Upekkha. It is through manifesting these qualities that we know the enlightened, just as we know a tree by its fruit. So, if I manifest any of these qualities, then it is not because I cultivated them, nor due to the profound hardships I have had to endure. They are simply the product of having lived a rigorous, self-aware, disciplined, contemplative life, that has ripened born fruit.
Of course this love of life does not ignore the fact that mother nature
can be truly non-dual. Oceans are a good example. Beautiful and
deadly. This understanding is also within you. Perhaps your father
saw you were greater than him, then being a competitive male, from
a generation forged by world wars, he tried to his dying day to beat
you down, failed, then passed on. This kind of caring from a parent,
negative as it is, was very common for that generation.
So it goes,
Kimo
Well, 2 years after his death, and still learning more about him, I am inclined to agree with you, but I believe it was a little more twisted than you suggest. I just think he could not bear me succeeding anywhere near as well as he, or even worse in his mind, succeeding better than he.
