Becoming Increasingly More A Parent
117th Edition
Happy Spiritual Monday
It’s become apparent to me lately the transitions which seem endless occurring within and around me. Simple fact is that when I started writing this, I was not a father. Shortly after I began, maybe the 7th or 8th edition I found out I would become one. And now I have a beautiful boy who’s nearing 2 years of age.
5 years ago, you would’ve never convinced me I would be where I am at now. I was single, content, no thoughts of future and not really that much responsibility, looking back on it. What a carefree lifestyle that was, and how I didn’t even know it was shifting so quickly! And now here we are, smack in the middle of 2024…
Growth
As of late, I have been reflecting often on words we choose to use quite regularly in our lives… some have deep held meaning, some are just thrown, and some are worthy of a reassessment.
Growth is one fun one, in that is is used so vaguely and can be so specific. I’d like to believe I have been on a path of growth for some time now, but honestly I question everything these days.
Yoga is about growth in many dimensions, especially when we begin on the journey. It’s a steep learning curve for the body if one hasn’t moved like that before. And yet, there is so much more in it…
For two decades I’ve practiced, in some form or another, with the aim at growing as a human, becoming more flexible in mind, body, spirit and constitution and in a major way I’ve practiced to be of better service to humanity and life itself. By all counts, I’ve come a long way!
Then parenthood hits… and I recognise immediately how this has all been theoretical up until the moment my beautiful boy popped from spirit realm. Parenthood puts reality into the clearest of lenses I have experienced thus far, and it’s a radical shift to say the least.
Becoming More A Parent
I raise this to illuminate how most of my life was lived through a fairly cruisy ethos. What I mean to say is that I have had the good fortune to always have a roof over my head, health in and around my family, ability to navigate life’s ways and challenges and always land on my feet. In short, I’ve never really had to fight for anything,
What’s the saying: “The hard road leads to the easy life, and the easy road leads to the hard life.”
It has been a pretty easy road for me, and while all is beautiful and grand, part of me would have chosen a harder path.
As a father, I am faced with the responsibility to teach and set an example fort my son in a world which seems to exponentially be going crazier. Not one to be confrontational, I have lived with the luxury of keeping a low profile, living under the radar in a way where I haven’t had to stand up and fight for much. Pretty cruisy.
I suppose the world has always had a crazy vein run through it, but it feels that now we are unable to escape the reality that there is no easy way if we want to lead a good and meaningful life. We have succumbed to an inordinate amount of consumption of bread and circus to keep us harmlessly contained in our goings on about life while the world shifts into a definite new era.
Just this past week, millions of people were tuned in (or maybe tuned out is more appropriate) to a debate between two elderly men who basically represented the South Park satire of a giant douche vs a turd sandwich. It was, and subsequently has continued to be, the talk of the US and much of the world, and it was a waste of over an hour of all of our time.
Side Note: While the debate was going on a bill was signed into action to stop any reporting of the numbers of dead civilians that keeps escalating in Palestine. Nothing to see here…
On that note, there are two “Popular” wars happening now - without discounting the horror that is occurring they both seem to be an attempt at creating the newest form of sitcom to keep us entertained. I can’t begin to speak on who is right or wrong in these debacles, but I can say that if I tune into my heart, I know for a fact that there is more at play than we are led to believe, and it is appalling that world leaders are arguing over these conflicts and using them as tools to accumulate more wealth at the expense of scores of human casualties.
This is the world I get to raise my boy in.
Of course, these kind of conflicts are far away from us, so I know I can rest assured that this sort of thing would never happen here in Australia (if you aren’t aware of the tool, I can guide you to a workshop on sarcasm.) I have had many a friend drift away in recent years over differences of opinion, and while I hold no grudge or beef, I feel for some of them.
The past 4 years of my life have been spent looking inward and outward to up level my abilities in things that most people are delegating to tech and AI. Don’t get me wrong, tech is cool and all, but I wish to still retain the abilities that make us human. My fear is that the more we offload to machines, the less capable we become as humans. Then we raise even less capable children and the cycle brings us into a sort of Idiocracy-esque future.
I have kept my opinions on many world matters close to my chest, as I don’t really believe much of the world cares what I have to say on foreign matters, but my son will. So what do I tell him when he asks me why this all happens? When he wants to go out and binge on fake food, fake nourishment, entertainment with no inherent value, do I just succumb to the “Well, I suppose everyone else is doing it, so go ahead!” Or do I stand my ground and hold him to a higher standard than myself?
Weird Parents, Weird Kids
A dear friend of mine has two children and when they were very young - and I was in no place to even consider ever having kids - I recall her saying how they had never had a soda, a sweet or any fake food. At the time, I remember thinking how weird that was, how strict and how out of place they seemed. And how right I was, I just didn’t grasp the context.
“Weird” has an etymological origin to the tune of “one who controls fate/ destiny” and that hits hard when I consider how we throw around the term these days. Frankly, we abuse and butcher so many powerful words in the English language, but that’s a tale for another day…
The weird ones, then, are those who forge the paths of leading us into the new beautiful world. Now, years later, we find ourselves having to hunt for actual food. I’m not saying necessarily hunting in the most obvious context (although I do wish to) but even in markets, grocers and health food stores there needs to be an element of hunting if we want to consume actual food.
Maybe I’m wrong on this, but it feels like the past few years have seen a massive hike in cheap, unhealthy ingredients being added into our “food” items and these items are cheap to purchase and consume. It makes sense, then, that many people buy what they can afford just to get by, even with regards to their children. And there are also those who simply don’t know what’s actually in their food so they can blissfully be ignorant to the potential harm they are causing themselves down the road.
Bottom line is that we have become the weird parents, and I am proud to proclaim that. What this means is that I now have to start to choose whether I stand up for what we believe to be human rights to actual food without deception - like how “achete powder” is a more regularly used ingredient, but you have to know that it means crickets - or even to not have items such as Coca Cola and soft drinks and cereals even be listed as foods!
We are marketed to and targeted with the buzzwords of convenient, simple, fun and other easeful tones of voice so that we just go along with the Joneses. I understand anyone who eats poorly and doesn’t know better, it isn’t in our constitution to have to pry into what ingredients are in our food - it used to all just be the food!
We will be raising a weird boy, one who retains and strengthens his health and wellbeing, one who will control his fate and steer to his own destiny. I understand that many readers here would hear the information presented here as repetition, but some may not. I encourage everyone to check ingredients, do some research and be willing to shift if current habits do not contribute to your health.
I have witnessed parents giving their children horrible “food items” and compassionately I hope they don’t know how bad these things are, but I will not let my son be subjected to eating shit. Nor will I let myself or my family, and I encourage you to treat yourself as best you can. Daily good food is more health giving than that trip to the Mediterranean for two weeks, and our bodies are like a compounding interest system - they get better with more consistent effort.
Be well and be weird everyone!
And so it is, with love.
PS. It’s looking like September will be the month for the Inaugural immersion with myself and Fooji, so if you’re keen, reach out! I am scouting the best location, stay tuned!
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