I Have Been Thinking
I have been thinking about who we are as individuals and how the collective of individuals make up our communities, societies and our humanity. How do we know that our life has meaning and value. What is the purpose of living? Is it our job as citizens to follow the rules of the society in which we live? Is it our job to be certain about ‘the rightness’ of our positions in this world? Is my birth in a first world country a trick of fate or is it an entitlement? When I was a child I used to wonder how my life would have been different if I had been born in another country, to different parents with different siblings, or even a few years earlier. If I had been born during the second world war instead of just after it was over would my sense of self and place been radically different.
There was a Maclean’s article a number of years ago that said that 1952 was the best year in the last century to be born at least in Canada. There was enough…food, jobs, housing, peace, schools and so on and so on. Canada was full of hope.
Even before I read that article I always believed that children born in 1952 were special and just a bit better than babies born in other years. I do not know why I thought that but it was so. I actually grew up saying that baby girls born in 1952 were like the finest of wines. I also used to say that I was born under a lucky star. I believed that my parents were the best parents. My dad, I thought, looked like Steve McQueen and my mother looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor.
Somehow in the midst of poverty, abuse and a disintegrating family system I still believed that I was lucky. I though I knew that my parents loved me and that I had a stronger sense of what was right and wrong than others. I trusted my own judgment. At the age of 7 I believed that I had reached the age of reason and should be allowed to make my own decisions from then on. I was so certain in those days of my place in the world. That my life would have meaning and my voice listened to and respected.
I am now 68 years old and am not so certain about anything. I think about the human condition a lot. I wonder about how and why we are the way we are as humans. I have learned a great deal about life, that goes far beyond my curiosity, mostly from my clients.
People who have come to me for counselling have found me to be curious about them. How did they get to be the way they are and how do people persevere in spite of so many hardships. I continue to wonder and remain curious. This blog will be about some of the life lessons that my clients have taught me.
