Ingeniarius
Don Juan
Ever since I posted my other thread http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=151287 I’ve been thinking about fathers and father figures in our lives and how they influence us to become men (or unfortunately, in this time, not). I’ve thought about how their perspectives and thoughts about careers, work, pleasure, meaning of life, society and money influence our lives.
In particular, I wonder about how we can learn from and evolve past bad or unsatisfactory father figures, unsatisfactory here meaning that important information was not passed along to us, the sons. I think about the stages you go through when you realize that your father is not the strongest man in the world or the man you want to emulate when you grow up. I know now that I can learn from my father, but seriously don’t want to inherit some of his characteristics and properties.
To clarify, I made a list of striking properties of my father, and not all of them are "bad":
1) Performance and achieving high goals is important to him and an integral part of everything he does, in essence, he is the extremely competitive type that does not like to lose
2) He’s very proud of his career success (PhD and a senior exec with a $50 Bn company
3) Always convinced of doing the right thing, regardless of opinions of other people
4) He looks down on people who do not match his success or share his views, because if they had the right opinion, then they would be as successful as he is, or they are just lazy
5) Extreme self-discipline
6) Materialist (see 2) and 1))
7) He drinks
8) He thinks I should become him
9) Extremely creative and out of the box
10) Curious about other people and how they live (travel, travel, travel, I can write a book just like Marco Polo)
When I was little, I thought of my father as a hero. Now he’s a guy that really can’t help me anymore (apart from money and his influence) solve my personal problems, mostly because I don’t want to become him.
I realize there’s a certain breaking point in all father-son relationships such as in puberty, when the son starts doing more stuff on his own and stops allowing interference and unsolicited advice. However, most people adopt the way their parents see life 1:1 without thinking about it.
Now I am at a point where I not only broke away from my father in the classical sense, but also in that I don’t necessarily agree with his views and opinions about the basics of life anymore. It’s a pretty scary step because I think it will have immediate and severe consequences for our relationship (imagine if I quit school! The son has become a loser, a slacker, a lazy dumbass etc etc) and also because I will have to work to develop my own views and leave some of my father’s behind. I say work because in my experience, forming an own strong minority opinion is never easy and takes some effort to defend.
Coming to a close here, I think this step is necessary and will ultimately produce positive results for me; I just wonder if I will really step up to the plate and start living my own views.
Has anyone had similar experiences ?
In particular, I wonder about how we can learn from and evolve past bad or unsatisfactory father figures, unsatisfactory here meaning that important information was not passed along to us, the sons. I think about the stages you go through when you realize that your father is not the strongest man in the world or the man you want to emulate when you grow up. I know now that I can learn from my father, but seriously don’t want to inherit some of his characteristics and properties.
To clarify, I made a list of striking properties of my father, and not all of them are "bad":
1) Performance and achieving high goals is important to him and an integral part of everything he does, in essence, he is the extremely competitive type that does not like to lose
2) He’s very proud of his career success (PhD and a senior exec with a $50 Bn company
3) Always convinced of doing the right thing, regardless of opinions of other people
4) He looks down on people who do not match his success or share his views, because if they had the right opinion, then they would be as successful as he is, or they are just lazy
5) Extreme self-discipline
6) Materialist (see 2) and 1))
7) He drinks
8) He thinks I should become him
9) Extremely creative and out of the box
10) Curious about other people and how they live (travel, travel, travel, I can write a book just like Marco Polo)
When I was little, I thought of my father as a hero. Now he’s a guy that really can’t help me anymore (apart from money and his influence) solve my personal problems, mostly because I don’t want to become him.
I realize there’s a certain breaking point in all father-son relationships such as in puberty, when the son starts doing more stuff on his own and stops allowing interference and unsolicited advice. However, most people adopt the way their parents see life 1:1 without thinking about it.
Now I am at a point where I not only broke away from my father in the classical sense, but also in that I don’t necessarily agree with his views and opinions about the basics of life anymore. It’s a pretty scary step because I think it will have immediate and severe consequences for our relationship (imagine if I quit school! The son has become a loser, a slacker, a lazy dumbass etc etc) and also because I will have to work to develop my own views and leave some of my father’s behind. I say work because in my experience, forming an own strong minority opinion is never easy and takes some effort to defend.
Coming to a close here, I think this step is necessary and will ultimately produce positive results for me; I just wonder if I will really step up to the plate and start living my own views.
Has anyone had similar experiences ?
