NOW, VOYAGER!
Now Voyager!*
This was the title of a movie from the golden age of Hollywood films. It made a great impression on the young person I was at the time. It had great resonance for me because it illustrated how a life could be entirely reconfigured through the intervention of an outside agent. A person who had been severely damaged by a malicious parent, (no doubt ill in many ways themselves,) was opened up to a new life. Exposed then to a loving environment, the individual bloomed, moving closer to her full potential as a person.
Recalling the tale, I am filled with pain and anger at the thought of the suffering that can be inflicted on one emotionally dependant on another who does not care. For whatever reason that occurs, it happens too often. What a waste of human potential!
Starring Bette Davis at her best, the film illustrated how our growing up environment can have such a powerful impact on whether we will ever be able to fully exercise all the potentialities with which we may be born. The parent in the film did everything possible to destroy the offspring’s self-confidence and feelings of self- worth. Through the magic of Hollywood, and the skill of the psychiatrist in the film, we win through to a happy ending.
Reality offers us a much more complex panorama. Unfortunately, unwinding the damage caused to dependants raised in unhealthy environments, is much more difficult than what is portrayed in some movies or TV dramas. And the situation has not been improved by a public policy which has released many of the damaged personalities into the streets. The importance of finding someone somewhere in your life who can offer one an alternative model which is constructive rather than destructive cannot be overestimated. Finding that person in one’s environment can make all the difference in one’s life. A teacher, a friend, a neighbour who takes an interest can make all the difference.
But the movie also must have made an important contribution to educating many people as to the negative consequences of careless, or even malicious behaviour by parents in raising their children. We have had a radical revolution in that respect. Doctor Spock, and many of his collaborators in the wider area, have done good work. The more educated and caring elements of our society are much more aware of the importance of healthy interaction between parents and children. Nevertheless, so many of the people I meet have tales to tell about the dysfunctional environments in which they were raised. The saving grace is that we all have that inherent urge to get healthy. We are driven to keep trying to find that place in our relationships where what needs to be repaired will find a place where that might be able to occur.
But the improvements we may have seen in terms of the general consciousness relative to children in a family setting, is not necessarily descriptive of the nature of our educational and work environments. How many of us have experienced implausible behaviours on the part of teachers and superiors? We are less vulnerable to the damage that may be suffered by youngsters who have no other experiences by which to evaluate what they face, but that does not diminish the potential pain and stress that may be visited on subordinates and students by those in positions of power and authority serving personal agendas. There is no end to the aberrant behaviours we may come across in our growing up and in pursuing our careers.
Need I mention the intimate environments of marriages and partnerships? Is there another environment where the potential for good or ill is so inherent in what we ask of people entering such relationships? We come together, opening up, risking our vulnerabilities. Sometimes we are seeking that match that may allow us, with our partner’s help, to be more of the whole rounded person we all have the potential to be. Here is the place where many of the wounds we may have sustained in our journey up to that point may be identified and healed. Where there is caring, anything is possible, even if our partner has arrived with their own baggage that needs to be unpacked.
Undoing the damage of life’s trials can take a lifetime. We have all heard the stories of people with means being under treatment for years, even decades. We are often reluctant to interfere when we come across the dynamic. Our first instinct is to flee the scene. But when we are in a situation where we have emotional or intellectual ties to the person or persons, we cannot help but to be drawn in. It is often a thankless task, leaving us vulnerable to painful fractures in relationships.
We may say to ourselves, seeking a reason not to intervene, that we are not trained. But, at least, we may be the one who cares. We may be one of those people that can make a difference for at least one of the persons in the problematic interaction, if not for both. It can be a question of saving a life. Our intervention can make the difference. Don’t we have to try? In Judaism we have a saying that for he who saves a life, it is like he is saving the whole world. How can we fail to try, dangerous and presumptuous as it may be?
Wherever you are in the equation, n However, there can be things over which we may have some measure of control. That is our own behavior. Individual initiative, enterprise and attitude can make all the difference, whether modelled or innately ordained.
Now sail thou forth, voyager!
*Now, Voyager: Regarded as a film classic, starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, directed by Irving Rappel, screenplay by Casey Robinson, (Warner Brothers, 1942), the story was taken from the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty. It draws its title from a poem by Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, 1900.
‘The Untold Want’ -“The untold want by life and land ne’er granted, now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.”