Hello again, Dear Reader.
I have a ten-year-old son with anger issues. A lot of anger issues. Maybe someday I’ll go into those issues and I’ll tell you about the road he and I have taken together to get us here. Today, I want to talk about the conversation I just had with him.
This morning he hit his seven year old sister. Daniel and I have been working on why he shouldn’t hit for several years.
I am a firm believer that a parent must sit down and explain a punishment after the punishment was applied. I believe this because when I was a child, I never knew why I was spanked or grounded. Every time I was punished, it only affirmed my belief that my parents didn’t t love me because they never talked to me. More on that in Broken. As a mother, I took that experience and learned from it. After a grounding, I always sit down with my children to discuss their choices and actions.
When I talk to my children, I talk philosophy with them. I explain ethics and morals. I define these terms and I use Socratic Method on them. “Who are you?” “What are your ethics?” “Why do we need ethics?” I do this to get them to think, then I show them how to get these answers. “Who are you?” I asked my son. My ten year old son gave me the predictable answer, “I don’t know!”
I calmed him down and explained that a person can’t learn unless they accept that other people can teach them.
“You can never learn if you don’t listen. Learn to listen.”
After he left, I had to ask myself.
“Who am I?”
This question has always been a loaded question for me. It is a question I have thought about my whole life. I have been studying philosophy and logic since I was fifteen. Recently, I haven’t been able to answer this question. In short, I no longer know who I am. I recently woke from a lifelong illusion. Like Don Quixote, I was suddenly looking into the Mirror of Reality and it aggressively changed my perspective.
I awoke that day and realized everything I believed, everything I had decided, everything I am today—my ethics, perspective, beliefs, morals, habits…even my choices—are based on distorted premise. A lie. An illusion disguised as the truth. I had lived my entire life in a matrix and suddenly I realized I looked as foolish as an old man wearing a shaving basin on my head while chasing windmills. The irony is that Don Quixote is one of my favorite stories.
I don’t know who I am any more. My reality has been jaded for too long and the only truth I have is the knowledge I gained from philosophy, logic, and my own reasoning.
The problem is…all my premises are incorrect.
So who am I? I am an author who writes fantasy. I am an author who writes macabre. I am an author who…
I used the imaginary worlds to write my fantasy. Truth is, I haven’t written a word of fantasy since I looked in the mirror. That was a month ago. I’ve been too afraid to go back.
* * *
My husband: “Are you posting this?”
Me: “Yeah. Why not? Because you think I’ll be embarrassed? I can’t feel embarrassment. I have no privacy. I am incapable of feeling it.”
Him: “But people are judgmental.”
Me: “I don’t care. I am incapable of that feeling or caring.”
Him: “Would you like a career?”
Me: “I think its interesting.”
Him: “How much of this have you posted already?”
Me: “Its all in “Broken.” This is “Unbreaking Me.” It’s who I am. Part of the therapy is going to be learning how to feel things like embarrassment or privacy or shame. Do people care about being judged? Is that normal?”
Him: “Yes! This is about social interaction.”
Me: “Ah…yeah, I don’t know anything about that.”
Him: “Think about first impressions. Why do you care about making a first impression?”
Me: “Because I want something…like a job. A bad first impression could result in my losing that job.”
Him: “Exactly. If you make a poor first impression then you may have lost that.”
Me: [Thinking] “I don’t see me losing anything if I post this. It’s simply the truth. Its’ honest. This is what I am.”
