I spent the last week hanging out a lot with my Dad (Fred).
I realized something about halfway through our time together...I am very much like my Dad.
It was a strange and almost deflating experience. Not that being like my dad is a bad thing but it was so...revelatory in a humiliating kind of way. I realized that I am not that original. I look like him (except the hair), I believe like him, I sound like him...my cough, my laugh, odd noises like hummms and humphs. I have a similar walk, interests and on and on the pummeling continued. I am not sure what to think about all of this in light of how strikingly original I thought I was. In seeing this I can really understand my mothers (his ex-wife) disdain for so much of who I am because in reality and experience I am a mini-me of Fred.
Ahhhh the light goes on!
All of this has had a lingering contemplative effect on me.
Who am I?
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Too funny! -Matt
That is interesting and I think your conclusion regarding your Mom may be true. I know little of my own father but I too see him in myself. My mother too for that matter. I mean in no small way.
I found the likeness I observed last week to be such a harmonizing thing. It is rare to be around someone that appreciates so many of the same things. And much of what we did were things we did when you were a boy. The places you chose to go were in some ways like walking into the past. And thoroughly enjoyable. So you must have seen similar things in Marc, certainly everyone that met him saw the physical likeness.
I had another thought last night and also shared your thought with my boss; first the simple thought of "the two shall become one" came to me last night.
Now my boss sees himself very clearly like his father. In fact that seemed a given to him,he sees his task is to improve the character likeness, and the hope that each suceeding generation will make some improvement and so on.
I suspect that seeing me many times in situations that you would normally be in, playing, teaching, interacting with your children, revealed to you a clearer likeness than ever before. Would that I had that opportunity with my father.
Dad
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