I recently realized I am in a fairly unique position. There is no paternal bond left in my life. Both of my grandfathers are gone, my father is deceased, and I have no children. I’m sure this is not a wildly rare situation, but it’s one that lends itself to some introspective examination.
I wasn’t raised with a father, so I can’t speak to the notion of men needing other men to cultivate a fully-formed human. There wasn’t a bigger, harrier version of me handing over a playbook with keys to the testosteronic kingdom.
I’m sure I may have missed a few lessons along the way. I probably can’t throw a solid jab. There is no desire to attend strip clubs, kill animals for sport, or sit at a poker table, and I’d rather intentionally collapse my trachea than sleep outdoors in a tent.
But from a macroscopic level, there may be a fundamental disconnect when the bloodline comes untethered.
The long-lasting psychological implications germinating in a mind left alone to wander the world are above my pay grade, but there is certainly something absent. Finding a sense of peace as the calendar pages are torn becomes more of a priority than second-guessing specific decisions made along the journey. The “what ifs” are heartbreakers, but “what’s next” is fuel.
This stage will be tackled like all the rest, and I’ll find my footing on an icy staircase leading to some version of actualization, however faded that picture appears when I finally (hopefully) arrive.
We are driven by our core instincts and the only job we have is to listen. The answers come from the quiet voices in the shadowy recesses of our mind.
We simply need to remember that those whispers are screams.
Solitary Alignment 