Outcast

outcast

• Someone who doesn't belong in his main social area (work, school, the street). 

• Has only a few friends, but usually doesn't really hang out with them. 

• Someone who is told by his betters that he has wisdom beyond his years, but his peers make fun of him for it. 

• He's a little insane, after all, humans are social creatures. But his heart is mature, calm and kind. 

• He never really does anything big for himself, and most of the things he does are for other people. 

• He's just misunderstood, and people hate him for no reason. He's usually the victim of every negative stereotype and rumor. 

• But hey, he doesn't have a social life, it doesn't matter to him, he hardly has anything to lose. 

 It's a bit unsettling to discover that Who You Are can be held by the dictionary definition of a rather unflattering word.  At the same time it's pretty bitchin.   How many people can say they're  so easily defined?  In a culture where individuals pride themselves on being complicated, or complex,  you're just a noun with five common definitions.  You're an outcast, a discarded Human Being.  These are some synonyms to further define you: castaway, castoff, leper, off-scouring, pariah, reject.

The good news is you're not alone.  

As it turns out, I come from an entire family of outcasts.  I didn't know this before, to the extreme that I do now.  While conducting a recent internet search for a photograph of my father to show my sons, who have never seen him, I uncovered all sorts of crazy information about my family that was previously unknown.

Although it's surprising to discover that your parents are actually people too, it's also a relief.  It can allow you to forgive their faults.  It can allow you to accept some of your own.  I think most importantly, however, the discovery of things that were done, can teach you that what's been done, can also be undone.   It confirms that a Lifetime doesn't become one until it's been transformed by the weight of time it was given to develop.

A-ha...  

We aren't what we do successfully, or well.   At least, not initially.   We are what we have failed to become, and what we became instead.  I don't know if my life is unusual,  or the norm.  All I know is that the life I've lived is nothing like the one I thought I would.   All I know is that the life I've lived is the life I needed to live if I wanted a true experience of what it means to be human. All I've ever wanted, is that.

Nothing that I learned changes my perspective of the people who shaped my life.  If it's done anything, it's reminded me I'm out of line if the line I'm in is formed for judging others. It's reminded me that it is not enough to know someone in a moment, or a sequence of a few.   It reminds me of the impossibility of ever really knowing anyone, at all.  

Each of us carries a burden that we didn't deserve, one that ultimately serves to define us, to ourselves.  It's impossible for anyone else to know who we are if they don't know our burden.

 I need to treat the people in my life, and those who come into it in the future, with an acceptance that has rarely been extended to me.  The only way to transform the Injustice you note around you, is with the agreement you make with yourself to enact its opposite.

Puzzle Peace

The reason I was looking for a photograph of my father is that during a conversation with my middle son, Ethan,  he mentioned, almost as an aside, but with enough urgency to inform me that it was something he had thought about, that he didn't know what my father looked like.  He didn't know what my mom's second husband, Jack,  look like either. 

  "I don't know, Dad, everything I need to know about myself, that I need to..."  

Ethan  didn't ask me for a photograph.  He asked me to help him put himself together.  Ethan  is making his first serious attempt at  defining himself as a man.  That can't be done unless you know everything about what gave shape to the people who gave you yours.  I know this. 

I know this because all of the pieces that I need to understand my father are missing.  All of the pieces I need to construct myself are gone.   I may still be able to build something that appears to have been built well, but it  won't be.  It will be full of empty spaces, and anything built upon empty spaces holds the threat of collapse, always. 

If I can't find a picture of my father, for my son, I'll draw one, and lie.
But that will not be necessary.

Ma & Pa

'Dear Father'  sum41

'Dear Father'  colin Hay

'Beautiful World'   colin hay