Demon Stabler
It’s hard to compare lives. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, how different approaches render such dramatically different results, often I find that the way you approach something ends up being the main factor in the experience, if you’re positive about it it’s much more likely to be a positive experience.
Parenthood is such a complicated thing, how to be a good parent is bitterly argued, what each child needs is different though, as are what each parent needs. To me, the chances of getting it all right, being competent yourself, then for your lover to be so and having a child that is able to learn from you, or preferrably ‘suited’ to you isn’t high. All children learn from their parents but I think that a complication arises as, I believe, all children possess an inherent personality, and so there are ‘types’ of parents who will communicate better with that child’s inherent personality. I’m not saying it’s necessarily more beneficial though, and it’s hard to decide what will be most useful to a child, a child with a pacifistic tendency would probably find things easier if it’s parents were the same way, but a parent that enjoys or openly engages in conflict may be much more useful to the child, since that would help them learn how to deal with the conflict that type of person will present them.
A big part of parenthood is trying to communicate the importance of not just going with your emotions, your natural character. A child would not be successful as an adult. So they have to learn, if you want them to be happy/successful.
Teenager’s feel entitled, there is this popular attitude of "If the world won’t recognise me on my own terms, which I can demonstrate as reasonable and intelligent, then fuck the world, it is their loss, I won’t compromise." That was certainly a point of frustration for me, being right does not mean you’ll be successful or happy. I had to come to terms with the reality that if I wanted the things I wanted I would have to do things I don’t want to, I could choose to be righteous about it of course, but I’d be righteous and socially unsuccessful or ineffective, unhappy. Of course, there are things we don’t hand over, things we refuse to give up, and in a way I suppose that’s part of how we begin to understand ourselves, the things you refuse to hand over tend to be the most important things, the things that we feel say the most about your character.
Passion, character, intelligence, sincerity, these are all things that we value highly, but they’re very problematic, being an actual disadvantage in a number of situations.
Reconciliation with the self is an enormously difficult task, teenagers are understandably pissed off, their faculties are functioning close to full capacity for the first time, whilst essentially possessing the views and understandings of a child, it is surely exhausting, every day is potentially conflicting, stressful, every day is potentially another one where you’ll force yourself to give up something you want, so you can have something else you want. Obviously not all teenagers are angry though, but it is certainly understandable if they are.
A diarist on here that I like was talking about passion recently. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and it’s a very difficult thing for me to quantify, to discern. At the moment I’m leaning towards the idea that passion for me is either evident in everything or nothing, so if I count myself as a passionate person, I can’t think of any better way to explain my passion other than in that I am passionate about everything, I think for me it has to be all or nothing. However the reason I’m bringing this up is because I find that answer unsatisfying and I feel like I’m not grasping something integral to the matter, so opinions would be greatly appreciated, what do you think? If I were to stratify it the important parts would be questions: What does passion mean to you? Do you think it’s quantifiable or demonstrable? If so how? Do you think you possess it? Do you think it’s important to have it? Of course, maybe that’s my problem, as I was saying at the start, my approach could be wrong and those questions might be leading me to this unsatisfying position, so if you think there’s a better way to communicate your opinion use that way.