No one else is responsible for how we perceive the world. We accept and reject society’s influences and the influences of our parents and friends on our own terms. We fabricate our own perception, and unless we discontinue the process and de-structure our perception, we will merely continue to be repressed by our personal totalitarian regime.
Topic of recent discussions. J and I have been involved in the 'last reunion' of the Stephen clan - they leave in February 2015. All the children have returned for a final Christmas and NY. We have been to see them - there are a lot of them, let me tell you! But Julie knew many as children when she looked after them many years ago now. We have watched for any that have taken up the call to become their own person - to escape the personal totalitarian regime. Some we had high hopes for, have proved disappointing. But two have shown some promise.
Is it strange these two were those who had some highly difficult years? One young woman, nearly died of anorexia. She is still very thin. But I talked with her - she has just returned from spending years in Egypt. Another is a young man, who Julie now tells me went through a lot of personal turmoil earlier in his life, and now he has scored a job running the evening drive show on the ABC (national broadcaster) in North Queensland.
But their problem is not so much the uniqueness of their path. Their problem is that they have this cultural command to be financially successful. They are Lebanese, and as such suffer from an obsession that all New Australians have, of becoming successful socially and financially. There is no room for a poetic life, let alone a spiritual life. As a result almost all of them took the safe road of accountancy and finance. When I met a young woman, Barbara, whom I have known for so long, I at first didn't recognise her amongst the throng, and asked her point blank after she came bouncing up to me saying hello, "Who are you". She was special to Julie, and after a short conversation, she has become Julie's greatest disappointment. Now I realise the old saying of how we don't make mistakes - if I see her again, I am very tempted to ask her again, "Who are you". She is managing a film production company and often flies to Belgium to see the owners. She is successful, but she's a woman, and as such financial success is not expected of her - she is expected to get married and have babies, which she hasn't done.
Another young woman, Tracy, I was most impressed with when she was a child. She has done well - now runs iTunes in Australia. I was keen to see her, but when I joined the conversation she was having with Julie, I could hardly believe this was the same person. I was even reluctant to use her name, as perhaps I had mistaken who she was. She was lost - fallen into the same old mould of a middle-aged woman with children... conservative with dulled edges. I was reminded of the effect of having had children - and I was so conscious of how this doesn't apply to everyone, but to most. I confess to a sadness in life of having seen so many people slip into the mindless crowd - people who had such promise when they were children or teenagers. I think this causes me to pull back from children, which is not good, nor fair, yet it's there - so many have fallen asleep. Memories of bright moments, all lost into the mirage.
This task, of emancipation from our personal totalitarian regime, is not easy.
