Thursday, June 15, 2006
My mum has decided that I am not like her (contrary to many popular beliefs of my dearest relatives) and she listed the reasons as 1, I do not treasure family life as much as her and 2.I value money more than relationships. And yes, I hear you my friends, laughing. Well, her accusations are not entirely false but I find this little mind of mine wandering.
Why must I be like my mum in the first place? I am not saying that my mum is bad or whatever, even if my mum was the President of the United States, why must I be like her? And it just shows a inner inaquecy in her AND many of us. In this conservative society we live in, somehow or another, giving yourself high praises seem to end yourself in waves of gossips and negative feelings. Take for example, I think I am good at maths. I go around teaching people. I get ousted by my friends who say I am proud. Frankly, I predict two types of reactions, a) YES! That happened to me OR YA! My friend is like that or b) Are you sure? I don’t think that happens. If you have a C reaction, do tell me, I want to know J And if you are B, lucky you.
Anyhows, we can’t seem to boost of things we are good about (at least not to normal acquaintances) and because something in our hearts deals with it (something I call adaptation the surroundings) , we mellow down to a state where, we FORCE ourselves to see ourselves in a bad light (at least superficially) ie. We know we are good at Maths, but we keep quiet unless people asks us for help. When people praise us, we say “No la, I am not good”. And in your heart a little voice goes: I am good, but I can’ say, if I say it, I am a proud person” Stupid theory right? But it happens every single day and I myself do it too.
But back to the inadequacy bit, you see, because of the adaptation-to-prevent-others-to-say-we-are-proud, we have to force ourselves to NOT feel good about ourselves. And that’s when the inadequacy come it. We are created to feel good about ourselves. No, I do no mean we must boost of everything, there are things around the world that we do not know, and our good doesn’t mean the best. Rather, I mean, we are created such that we like the feeling of being a level higher than people around us. And thus parents want us to be like them. They know they are “better” than us (because they are older and blah blah) so they want us follow them, well, I am saying they are hypocrites or something, but it’s true that they have been through more than us and what they are doing now are a collection of many experiences and trials and errors but again, it’s not the best as many of them claim, but rather, it springs from the fact that they have been forcing themselves down for so long (pretending they are not good) but still knowing that they are good at things and by the time they hit their 40s and 50s, it has reached the peak. They WANT to feel good so badly, but they STILL can’t do it outside and who they divert it to? The kids. The feeling that the kids are following them makes them feel good, every one likes to be a notch higher up.
I swear this is a messy piece of exposition, but I hope you all are following my argument. So, in short, our dear parents are being oppressed too long, they can’t tell others how good they are (because they will be critised) and by the time they hit their 50s, it’s like at the bottleneck, so what they do? They try to make their children follow them, I mean when someone follows you, it means you are good right? And some people, like my mum (for various reasons) take it to the extreme, she somehow feels that her model of living and thinking is the best (err.. As much I don’t really like my mum a lot, this isn’t meant to be a personal attack) and if I don’t follow her model, I am bound to die. I am bound to get into trouble.
Oh well, I don’t really buy that. And that is one reason my mum and I don’t see eye to eye.
So back to the question, why must I be like my mum?
Innocence
10:05 AM
