I Don't Wish To Be... My Parents

Beehive Bench # 1--checking the spacing between supers.

Sparkill, NY

March 15, 2020

Dinner with friends last night. An especially small gathering.

Sometimes life consists of quietly waiting and being present. One watches all of the impulses that arise and stays there with them, doing absolutely nothing. Except watching.

This exercise can be undertaken anywhere, at any time, when I am with other people. It reveals figures of my personal machine and how it operates.

One of my friends was speaking about how she sees that she needs to have her own being, and not be a creature of her parents impulses and desires – we’re not talking about a young person here, and it's interesting that she, like the rest of us, recognizes that we still have impulses and machinery in us that was installed by our parents and doesn't belong to us at all. Being present helps us to be more ourselves and less such impulses.

On a similar note, yesterday, I was buying lumber for the platform I intend to put beehives on this spring, and the line at Lowe's was very long and somewhat confusing, snaking in several vaguely defined directions—very much like real life. Probably because it was real life. People were using the usual sneaky subterfuges to “innocently” cut in front of others, as if this tiny slice of time mattered that much. 

I immediately saw impatience and anger arising me, an impulse to try and get in front of this or that possibly cheating person. (It may have been a little more tense than usual, because the undertone of CoVID-19 is ever present in gatherings today.) As this impatience arose, I saw how much like my father this was: such a reaction would be entirely in his character. 

I don't want to be my father, I thought to myself. 

This impression was quite clear and definite and taught me something about the nature of heredity and parenthood, and how only personal presence and intelligent choice can have an impact on the direction that takes me in.

 I consciously decided to put these strong egoistic impulses behind me and wait them out. Even, if necessary, let someone who was definitely behind me go in front of me – I didn't, but in order to go against the way I was inside, I would have done so if the possibility was truly there.

The whole time, I had to see the inpatient part of myself pumping out its material like a oil well. There was a thickness to it that had no compassion or intelligence. It's sobering to see such a thing; how often is that well pumping when I don't notice it?

Of course I'm like my father, and also like my mother. 

Yet my responsibility is to be myself, not them, and it's worthwhile to have this question in front of me as I go forward.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.