The importance of finding peace through developing empathy and compassion for my father and others
If I can’t achieve peace personally, how can I possible
help others find personal peace or understand
the processes that will lead to world peace?
When I was in the second half of my eight-year elementary school, I can remember three times my father used the exact same words. Usually it happened while he was leaving the house, walking out to the car to go somewhere. I would be following behind yapping at his heels about some grievance. He would stop, turn around pointing a finger at me and say, with genuine anger, “One thing you’d better remember, Ted, is that the three of you kids are nothing but a God-dammed drain on my time and finances, and I can’t wait until you’re old enough to hold down jobs, pay your own way and move out!” There was nothing I could but to withdraw feeling hurt and angry.
My older brother was born 20 months before I was. I am sure that he wasn’t getting the emotional support any child needs, because my father wasn’t capable of it. My brother saw my arrival as the worst thing that could have happened to the family. He did everything he could have to make me feel bad and look bad.
I believe that there is a function of the mind that is constantly surveying our immediate situation to assess whether our environment is nurturing or dangerous, caring or uncaring. In my environment I always felt that there was always the risk of my being treated uncaringly. My response to this fear was to withdraw into myself. My brother’s response was to be aggressive.
It has only been in the last few years that I have learned to feel genuine compassion for my father. I assume that my father had a father much like mine. I am sure that he never really felt safe from uncaring treatment. His response was to be aggressive. He went on to college and eventually got a Ph.D. in zoology. He had a long teaching career at Chico State. With students who majored in zoology or at least biology, he would aggressively work to teach them as effectively as he could. These students loved him. For students whose interest in zoology was casual, he had very little time, just criticism, and often plenty of sarcasm. Many students detested him. There was generally a kind of franticness in his behavior.
As far as I can tell, the only other time he ever really felt good was in his many, I am told, extra marital affairs. I can believe that he felt good and safe in the cocoon of these sexual exploits. Generally, in most social situations he seemed to feel rather awkward.
When he was in his eighties, I attempted to have a conversation with him to mend or at least improve our relationship. As soon as I tried to start the conversation, he cut me off, saying, “Oh! We weren’t all that estranged. It’s just that you were off doing your thing and I was off doing mine.” He made it clear that he no intention of getting into the subject. . I have no doubt that if he had known how to live a happier life he would have lived it. We have both suffered because we have lived our lives in a time when civilization is still a long way off. I am sure that my father was a man who rarely knew peace; and peace in possible.
My brother completed college, got a teaching credential and, as far as I can tell, enjoyed his elementary-school teaching career. He told me that he had many extramarital affairs over the years. He said that he made an effort at the 12-setp program, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. He had a bit of a slip. One Saturday he had to walk his divorce through the county building, so that he could get married his next the next day, Sunday. He was legally married five times. He died in his late seventies, six months after his last marriage ended in separation. I don’t think he ever felt peace either, and peace is possible.
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All of us have a mind function that is constantly assessing our surrounding environment to see if it is generally caring or uncaring, safe or risky. Throughout most of my adult life I have felt that the risk of uncaring treatment was always nearby. For the most part I have lived a rather solitary life. In hindsight, I was constantly projecting the vibes: don’t bother me, I don’t want to get to know you and I don’t care about you. Without realizing it I was constantly adding to the background community environment that says, “Uncaring treatment is never far away.” For most people, the higher the background fear level is in a community, the more people become reactionary and less clearly rational. The higher the background fear level is in a community, the more strongly people will react by further withdrawing or becoming more aggressive. As our national politics becomes more and more polarized, people become more and more reactionary and irrational. Each side feels that they have the only good ideas and that their opponents have nothing of value to offer. Their message is; “Care about me and don’t care about the other.”
