The Child is the Father of the man
What the hell does that even mean?
I have a confession to make. I’m a reader. I read as much as I can in a day and feel like I haven’t achieved all that I could have done if I let a day go by without having read something from my current novel of choice, even if that means just a few pages.
Right now I’m really into the Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami. The way he crafts stories makes me feel like I’m reading poetry in story form ala Milton or Alighieri. Beauty is contained in so many of his sentences that it feels like I’m doing a bad thing by not spreading the word to all that will listen about his work. My colleagues are bored, for the most part.
But one sentence, ‘the child is the father of the man’ completely stumped me.
I just couldn’t figure it out. Kafka on the Shore was the book I read that sentence in. I understood all of everything I’d read by Murakami (quite a bit) up till then. Then one night I was driving my bike home along the dangerous Bangkok roads, second only to Libya in fatalities, swerving through traffic a bit too carelessly when it hit me. The meaning of the sentence hit me, not a vehicle. Silly. I’d figured it out.
I told myself to slow down. I needed to keep my self in one piece now that I’m a father. My boy isn’t even a year old yet. (I’m actually sat here re-editing this and he is two weeks from being a year old. My love grows for him everyday that he too grows, too quickly!)
He’s just at the cusp of taking his first steps. I tell you this as much as I’m telling myself for my memory of this time in my life. I scolded myself for driving too fast, wanting to get home that little bit faster, so that I might sit and do nothing for the rest of the evening even more speedily.
But having a child made me reflect. Made me take my time. Slow down. I have to be in one piece for him. I have to be there to protect and raise him. I have to keep it together so that he can grow up to be the best man he can be. To do that I have to too. Or at least start on the path to becoming better first. I have to improve myself. And so you see, the child is the father of the man because it is our children too who raise us up to be better people. He, by his very being teaches me to try harder, be better, drive slower, be more careful. But I won’t give you, you anonymous reader some nugget of advice or even a warning, I’ll just leave this thought with you, and see how it grows inside you, as all good ideas do.
The child is the father of the man.
