I can't help but laugh

[Alsiony]

I am not a Buddhist - but there is a beautiful book in particular (in my humble opinion) that I thought I would share with you, just in case anyone's interested...

It's only a small book and it's called "Eastern Wisdom' by Priya Hemenway

I'm not promoting this book! - just sharing something I have read... you can probably get it on Amazon or something.

A
x

[Violet]

I can’t help but laugh

I can’t help but laugh
Every time I hear a child cry.

In a sudden wave of fear
The heart gives up to hatred
And devotion appalls the senses
That time and time again are
Betrayed when children are
Deprived of the instruments of joy
They so require:

A pack of gum, a candy bar,
A plastic doll, a rubber ball,
An ice cream cone, a box of crayons,
A pad of stickers, a magazine,
A juice box, a big plush pillow
In the shape of their favorite
Cartoon character.

“I’m sorry,” the parents say,
“Not today. Maybe some other day.”
Or, “I don’t have the money
Right now. It is too expensive.”
Whatever excuse is made
Is of no matter to them.
The denial of their enthusiastic
Requests all sound the same.

I can’t help but laugh
And think how silly it is
Of them to cry
So outrageously
Over something
So inconsequential;

I just think to myself
That I hope they’re not surprised
When they get older
And discover that
The pretty girl just wants to be friends and
The cute boy just wants to get laid and
The all-night study session still only got you a B and
The car was stolen and
The neighbor ran over your dog and
The job position has already been filled and
The computer deleted its own memory and
The dry-cleaner can’t get that stain out and
The asshole that rear-ended you has no insurance and
The debt has augmented your credit history and
The wedding has been called off and
The cancer is overpowering your mother and
The government has lied to you and
The wrinkles in your face are making you look old and
The overlap in your gut is making you look fat and
The world is indifferent to your best-laid plans and
The funeral is going to be tomorrow and
The next one could even be yours.
Then they will have something
To really cry about—

These children, so foolhardy
In their ways;
A tantrum for the sense
Of loss of the entitlement
Of prominence…
A paroxysm for the nondescript
Gestures of humanity…

I can’t help but laugh at
These children—these fools of trivial glories—
Just at the moment I ask myself,
Who is the genuine fool here?

Once upon a time.. when I was a very little girl.. maybe four years old, I think.. oh, and as a four-year-old I had by that time acquired all kinds of fears.. I was afraid of the pollution billowing out of the factory smoke stacks that lined the highways.. afraid as to what this pollution must be doing to the clear, blue atmosphere surrounding us.. I was afraid of fires.. thought conflagrations could occur far more readily than was actually the case.. or, at least, in one instance this was true.. that time when I tried to get out of the family car as it slowed down for a toll booth -- this, because someone threw a lit cigarette out his car window, right onto the highway.. and I was so certain the world would go up in flames, and certain that I needed to get out of the car, and stamp out this menacing lit cigarette.. so.. yes.. by four years of age I'd quite a collection of very taxing fears.. and yet there were moments.. such as when my father would take me and my brothers to that old-fashioned ice-cream parlor, and buy us each an ice-cream cone (those Sunday afternoons after church).. and I remember the time I'd gotten a strawberry cone.. (actually, chocolate concerned me -- the color of it, I mean -- it seemed rather like a "boy color," I thought) (and so, I guess I was aesthetically oriented, even then).. but I remember this lovely crisp cone crowned with a nice round scoop of old-fashioned strawberry ice-cream -- the kind that's very pale pink, and speckled with frozen, deep-red strawberries.. and.. well, I guess in these moments of childhood, these very special moments, when one's father could take all the nightmares away.. all the fears.. all the impending hurt.. and simply by being kind and generous and sharing in these simple things.. and so, when suddenly I tipped the cone slightly, and out fell the ice-cream.. upside-down on the sidewalk! -- I remember letting out such a wail.. it wasn't even in my power to control it.. and even though I'm sure my father would have taken me back to the the ice-cream parlor and restored to me my strawberry ice-cream cone -- even so.. I don't remember that part of the day at all.. to a child, it can be rather like a death, in a way.. these seemingly small events.. as maybe in looking forward to licking my strawberry ice-cream cone until it was but a pleasurable feeling in my stomach.. maybe in that moment's anticipation, the harrowing prospect of all that so frightened me was magically held at bay.. indeed, I was intimately attached to that ice-cream cone.. for in that moment's pleasure, wasn't it truly a part of me?.. a part of my love for my father, even?.. and in that moment that it fell -- and too, I saw it begin to melt -- oh, dear God.. how all in life must fall.. must come apart.. must be ravaged by cancer.. by fire.. by consumptive lungs, intent on housing all of love's sorrows..

.. and so.. so great is this small loss of these small souls.. for they know all that we know in their small world and ways..

v i o l e t

[Teratogen]

Thank you for the story, violet. You pretty much helped to solidify my theory on the emotional attachments children make to such silly little inconsequential things. It is the way adults make these attachments and give dire meanings to things like cars, houses, careers, relationships, etc. We may view those exact same attachments children have to their things as inconsequential, but why do we give a higher meaning to our "adult" attachments? Perhaps even children fail to understand why adults feel the way they do about their "things" and think of them as inconsequential. I wouldn't be surprised.

[Violet]

.. Hi T..

... hmm.. I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly how you are interpreting my little story.. perhaps you are getting what I was saying, though I'm not entirely sure.. are you saying that there are deeper causes for these attachments?.. (as I was trying to suggest).. having read your post for a second time, I guess I'm realizing that maybe that's what you're saying, after all, though I didn't pick up on that the first time 'round..

.. well.. maybe you can see what I've written (below) as my exploring more what I'd originally intended in sharing these childhood memories..

... [in so speaking].. it seems that often there is laden in such attachments some very serious things.. Of course, there are no doubt "spoiled" children, who are in some instances manipulating their parents into things.. but that is not the sort of instance I'm here citing.. I guess I'm saying too.. well.. it's about such moments as being highly symbolic.. something might happen to you, even as and adult.. and it seems to reach far inside you, exposing to you some of these "ancient" hurts.. the kinds of hurts that I didn't even really get into with this piece, since I spoke about fairly external things.. I mean, the fact that I was so worried about pollution and fires, would seem to point to something else being amiss inside me.. something that got projected onto these more "manageable" things.. and you know, to say that pollution and fires are manageable should give one pause.. but to a child, when compared to the kinds of things that happen between a child and his/her parents.. the kinds of things that are hurting the child, but over which the child has no control.. those things may be far more frightening and impossible to comprehend than allowing that the problem has to do with fires and pollution -- tangible things out in the world, that one could conceivably do something about.. although they too are dangerous and frightening enough to "stand in" for the deeper issues going on.. and so, that sense of loss and abandonment that came up when losing the ice-cream might well have been evoking that sense of emotional abandonment I'd already been experiencing, although I had no way of comprehending it, or in any other way "getting to it".. and so it is indeed the damaged psyche that has its way of "attaching" itself to externals.. until the deeper issues get unearthed, and are in some manner dealt with..

.. anyway, I felt inspired to write something that would get inside the emotions of a child.. and for me, I have to say, that's not all that hard to do.. I am in contact with my child self, and know intimately what she has suffered.. and in this knowing, I have tried to find some healing.. though such healing doesn't come all at once.. and even one life time may not be enough for some of the deeper hurts we may be suffering..

.. so.. that's what the strawberry ice-cream cone is about.. layers of things.. deep seated hurts and fears.. and frail, failed attempts to circumvent them..

[Alsiony]

I was captivated whilst reading your last post Violet, you articulated the point very well (in my humble opinion!)

As a child I used to worry and be concerned about absolutely everything, and I think a lot of it was me projecting my own inner fears and senses of loss onto external things, which in some ways allowed me to somehow rationalise/cope with my innermost feelings along the way. I would never have been able to put it into words like this as a child though.

A big influence in my childhood years, (though by far not the only one) and a reliable source of anxiety throughout my whole childhood - was the constant question of whether my natural father actually loved me or not. At the time it was always all so confusing- because I was being constantly messed around (in terms of being in contact with him) and then, finally finally, being abandoned by him in the end. I just don't know him these days, and with the gift of hindsight, I one day realised that I never really had known him all along, even though I can remember things from as young as the age of two years old.
Anyways - there will always be a part of me that will never heal about that. Accepting it for what is is- the cold hard and un-bending truth - that is my source of comfort with regards to that bit of my life, that is how I am 'healed' about it - that is as much as I can realistically hope for. Infact- that is all I need. (I am not being deluded here - it is the truth that's all).
No amount of thinking or talking or weighing up will ever change the simple fact that my natural father, who was there for the first four years of my life (the age I was when my parents split up) and sporadically and rarely for the decade that followed (so it wasn't like he had never met me) in the end... actually consciously decided one way or another to get rid of my existence in his life. And so I was a worry-some child, and I think I was concerned about so many things because deep in the back of my mind I had that constant fear that I didn't matter to him - but worrying about all and sundry was my way of letting that out I guess.
Or, you could say that I was a worrying kind of child because I had this fundamental weakness and constant feeling of loosing something (that I never fully had to start with) growing like a cancer in my tiny little life, and so that helped fashion me into the kind of child that I actually was.

Anyways, I have since made a lot of sense about it to myself, by myself, over the years.
Taking control of it in my own mind was the key though. Realising that I have a choice about how to feel and react and then how to become something that I am happy with from it, was - and still is - very empowering. (Especially when I realised that that ability was already there inside me, all I had to do was to actually use it).
Sometimes loss is just a dead end, and that helpless and hopeless kind of loss, with no real explanation to follow - I think is perhaps one of the hardest types of loss for any child or any adult to come to terms with. Many never do.

So if a child is told it cannot have something, and not given a full explanation as to why, in some cases (not all of course) this is simple duplicate of what happens in adult life at times too.
So should children always be given an explanation? Should they always - in every case - be told the reason why they can't have that (strategically placed by the shop owners) toy at the side of the till in the shop? Or is it not of (atleast equal) importance, to actually teach a child that they have the potential within them to cope with loss, and it is part of the parents job to empower them by helping them to realise this?

A
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[Violet]

Hi A.. in answer to such difficult questions.. I'd say that if you have cultivated a relationship with your children that is open and (to as large a degree as is possible, given their young age) honest.. then maybe all is answered in that.. I think difficulties arise because very often children are alienated from their parents, namely because parents are trying to grapple with their own inner torments.. and so it would seem, if you've dealt with your own loss in the way that you seem to have dealt with it.. with compassion and understanding for yourself.. for that little girl who was so terribly hurt by that loss, and lack of true contact with your father.. well, then, it would seem that in seeking to heal as best you can that wound, you have done for your own children the very best thing, since, in coming to a better place within yourself, you are no doubt better able to assess and assist in those potential fears and hurts that your children may be experiencing, since, after all, that is a part of life.. and no one can be a perfect parent either.. just a good enough parent, so that your children are fairly whole and able to deal with whatever comes..

.. I'm not a parent, but in working on myself, and looking closely at my relationship with my own parents, and other family members, I also see where these things would enter into being a parent who is more consistent and emotionally available than were my own parents..

.. well.. this sort of conversation could go on and on, I guess.. but I'm thinking you sound like an understanding parent who's consciously working at these things in the best way you are able, which is a lot.. I'm not focusing on the word "love" right now, since I believe you can feel you love your children, and still not do right by them.. I guess, in terms of these upsets over seemingly inconsequential things, it's for a parent to try to gauge whether the problem is as simple as the child just being too tired, and ready for a nap.. or whether some deeper need or fear is being expressed.. if there is a death in your family, for example.. a loss of a grandparent, etc.. children might react to something like that in indirect ways.. so.. maybe there's a way to get a sense of what is potentially serious (in which case, some tender loving care might be in order), and what is something where having rules and boundaries, and saying "no" would be important..

.. anyway.. my best to you in this, as I know it isn't always easy..

v i o l e t xxx

[Alsiony]

I think you're right in a lot of what you say Violet, and yes it is true that I think about my relationships with my children very deeply - and I am absolutely far from being perfect, (even if there was such a thing... I still wouldn't be one of the perfect ones!).

For me, it is again spot on what you have just said about Love also. For, these days as I can better understand the situation and the past, I do believe (and have for a long while now) that in fact, from his own point of view my Father always did love me, I am no doubt about that. It just came down to who he was and what he just wasn't capable of, and that he completely screwed it up on a huge scale, as far as I was concerned. The last time I spoke to him was when I was 14. In my memory he is like a photograph in an album from years gone by, never to be gotten back to, but totally unforgettable.
Time and life's events bound together - are like the tides of a sea and contents of a beach... when the tide goes out -it takes things away, but then it will always bring new things to you as well.
This is part of how I see loss I guess.

Anyhows - you are also right... when you saying about the conversation going on... and I don't mean to, so I'll be quiet for a bit.

Dear Jason... I take my hat off to you for a wonderful and insightful composition,
that has in turn given birth to a thread of conversation that I am enjoying reading very much.

BestWishes

A
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[Violet]

.. A.. I wanted to agree with you that, as opposed to adults, who can look back and rationalize as to whatever it was their parents were going through, for a child, no such rationalizations are within their grasp as yet, and so she [he] winds up blaming herself for whatever it is that befalls her.. I felt the pain of loss (as concerns the icre-cream cone).. but I certainly didn't understand the larger ramifications.. so, what I was intending to say was that, even still, this sense of loss is as great for the child as it is for the adult -- even greater, perhaps.. as a child has no way of truly making sense of her feelings..


much later edit: just snipped the beginning, which wasn't the substance of the thing I was intending to say.. so.. (I should never re-read these things)..

[Teratogen]

I kind of quickly skimmed through the conversation here between you two, Alsiony and violet, but to respond to you, violet, I quite well understood your story of the ice-cream cone. What I was trying to say I guess is that most adults would view a child's emotional attachment to trivial things to be of an inconsequential nature. They fail to see why a child would whine and cry so maniacally over something as simple as a toy when they, as adults, have probably experienced what they would deem a greater sense of loss. On the flipside, if it is possible to enter the mind of a child, I was suggesting that perhaps a child can hold the same view towards the emotional attachments adults make to things.

In my experience working retail I've seen a parent come to the register with things to purchase, most often cosmetics (for the mothers) or a case of beer (for the fathers), and the children come up from behind with a candy bar or a toy they want, and then the parent telling them they don't have the money. Sometimes I myself wonder why these things are so important to the parent that they couldn't spare a little extra for something the child wanted. Perhaps they are denying their child for a different reason, but that's the one I often hear the most, and I'm sure that those children have heard that same one the most from their parents as well. I think adults feel that their money is well-spent on the things they so desire most, but that it would be squandered on the things that their children want. I bet from the child's point of view they might perhaps be asking themselves the same question: Why is the lipstick more important to Mommy?

To answer Alsiony, when a child is told it cannot have something it wants and is not given a full explanation, I think sometimes it's just laziness on the part of the parent, but I also think it's because the parent really does not have a good enough answer as to why. Refer to the part in my poem where I mention that it doesn't matter what the response is, as long as the child receives a negative reaction it's all the same to them. Whatever reason the parents give it's all the same to the children. They can ask why and receive a valid excuse but it won't stop them from whining and crying. And perhaps some children may whine and cry to take advantage of their parents but as I said before, it's something that's practically inescapable since they learn from an even younger age (as an infant) that crying--for lack of a better means of communication--will get the attention of their parents.

I've been a strong supporter of the position that parents should never lie to their kids, even if they mean well. As a parent I don't think I would ever use the tactic of denying them their desire for a toy or candy bar so that I may teach them to grow accustomed to a sense of loss. It just seems like a far stretch for me. I never underestimate the curious minds of children who have the great learning capabilities at such a young age. I would never expect them to make that connection that dealing with the denial of a candy bar roughly equals that of being denied coverage for health insurance, or something of that nature.

[Alsiony]

As a parent I don't think I would ever use the tactic of denying them their desire for a toy or candy bar so that I may teach them to grow accustomed to a sense of loss. It just seems like a far stretch for me. I never underestimate the curious minds of children who have the great learning capabilities at such a young age. I would never expect them to make that connection that dealing with the denial of a candy bar roughly equals that of being denied coverage for health insurance, or something of that nature.

...I think you misunderstood some of what I was saying Jason.

While parents are (or should be) constantly aware of their children and their development in all aspects and on all levels, I wasn't actually suggesting that they should also be constantly trying to teach them a lesson either. We aren't robots! And definitely shouldn't live as such when doing something as organic and privileged as raising babies to be the next generation.
Much of what children pick up is so subtle... so subtle that only a parent who is as fully aware as possible really consciously recognises it, out of everyone, a lot of the time.
Much of what a child learns is simply based on what they grow up into, their environment and the natures of the people who are their main guardians one way or another.
You might not literally think to yourself - 'I am going to refrain from giving you this bar of chocolate because it will help you to cope with the concept of death' or whatever, but the screaming child that such a denial may produce - gives you, as a parent, the opportunity to teach a child through their own reactions to it.
However this does not mean that you launch into an enormous life lesson every time something such as this happens! That would be insane! - for they do not learn most things from just one instance - if there is one thing that you can be sure of about little 'uns - repetition is inevitable! And ties in with your words...

as long as the child receives a negative reaction it's all the same to them. Whatever reason the parents give it's all the same to the children.

This is not always so. As a parent you have a choice about this to your child. Hand in hand with repetition comes patience - one of the hardest things of all at times!!!
It all comes under the same huge umbrella - how you raise your child overall...
Teaching, inspiring and loving a child... are just a few elements of what your fundamental job as a parent is - preparing them for adulthood, to be able to stand on their own two feet one day in the great wide world.
That is what it is all about... and the subtleties and intricacies involved in that process are almost limitless... ...

In one of my poems I wrote a metaphor about pregnant women with 'Bellies full of clay' - you cannot develop and nurture such a priceless thing as another human being easily - it requires, amongst other things - a certain firmness and but also a caring softness all at the same time.
You cannot achieve so well by prodding and squashing 'clay', what is really required is cradling with strong guiding hands, so that they might 'find their own shape' - as the wheel spins round and round.

Of course, this is all just my opinion - it's never easy, but something that does make it easier (again in my own opinion) is if you are prepared to truly throw yourself into it all and be un-afraid of becoming immersed.

A
x

[Teratogen]

Perhaps you are right. I guess a child can learn something by eliciting the same responses every time a parent denies them something. I guess it's just that I see the same exact thing with every kid that gets denied whatever it is they want with whatever excuse is given to them. Perhaps I just haven't noticed patterns with specific children over a course of time.

[Marisha]

WELL, YOU WOULDN'T LAUGH IF YOU HAD A FACE LIKE A DOUGHNUT, WOULD YOU. YOUR POST IS COMPLETELY CAKEIST. I DON'T NORMALLY USE CAPITALS BUT YOU CAN SEE HOW MAD YOU HAVE GOT ME. PEOPLE COME HERE TO WRITE ABOUT THE GOLF LEGEND ARNOLD PALMER NOT TO GO ON AND ON ABOUT DOUGHNUTS.

MODERATOR- PLEASE REMOVE THIS THREAD.

[Violet]

.. Marisha.. most here have let you go on and on about bananas without asking that you remove them -- well, maybe it was suggested that you mash them... or maybe you'd already mashed them.. ANYWAY, the point is, I can't see how doughnuts are really your concern -- other than how they may -- very decidedly, I suggest -- relate to your g****** precious bananas (!!!).. (I mean, at the very least they give you a nice snug little hole of a place where you can, well, shove them).. geesh..

.. and ANYWAY anyway, I thought it was Kwillis who brought doughnuts into this godforsaken banana site.. not Mr. T.. so..

... I.F., you're the sanest of us here.. might you moderate??

[Violet]

.. you know, it occurs to me, Marisha, that you were no doubt reared in what's sometimes termed a one doughnut family.. and so at every opportunity you seem hell bent (and that's not an allusion to your g***** precious bananas, which, of course, are not at all bent, nor did I ever even remotely suggest they were).. now where was -- oh, so, given your so obviously deprived upbringing (if we can call what happened to you as moving in an "upward" direction).. you just automatically, it seems, seize upon each and every opportunity to insert all kinds of baking items*.. (yes, and by that I DO mean to invoke.. well, even just the possibility of BANANA BREAD).. (I'm sorry, but somebody had to break the news to you, even though your highly libidinized banana-phallic obsession has been demoted in this, given all the mashing that no doubt went on.. I mean, given your home only had one doughnut 'n all, and so bananas (or even just one bad one) had to pay the price).. [by the way, where are the incessant tears that used to pour out of this particular (non)smiler??].. (gee wiz.. I finally use one of these annoying things and it's not performing properly) (which is par for the course, it seems) (and yes, that would be to satisfy your new phallically-twisted-into-an-Arnold-Palmer obsession).. (my god)..

.. anyway, Marisha.. I just happen to have the name of a very good dessert(disorder) doctor (who likes to putt in her office),

Signed,
Dr. Violet, Ph.D.. (which is to say, specializing in doughnuts) (I'd mention too the hole-in-one possibilities, but our session's about up, I'm afraid)...

* the question as to.. well, just where she might inser-- oh, never mind..

.. edit: yes, I actually did find typos to correct in this otherwise utterly well ordered and easy to follow dissertation of sorts..

[Violet]

.. oh, to those of you carefully following.. I keep getting this word wrong, which I've duly corrected in the above post.. to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure it's a real word, even.. anyway, I thought as punishment I should write it as many times as I think I can get away with.. (I now have a new interest in just what the "real" moderators here are willing to tolerate).. okay, here goes: (oh, and I'll write it each time, as fast as I can.. no copy 'n paste, in other words).. (oh, and I'll color these red, since that's likely to make the moderators especially angry, even if they don't quite realize why):

libidinized
libidinized
libidinized
libidinized
libidinized
libidinized
lifidinized
libidinized
lobidomized
libidionozed
lifidinized
livididinzied
(I'm not very good at this)
libidinized
libidinized
livividnized
libindinzied
lividinized
lividinized
lividiinized
libidinized
libidinized
libidinized
libidinzed
libidinezed
libididiaze
dlibidiiazed
livinidlze
lividini
libidinized
libicinized
libidinied
libidinized
... (I'm not sure I'll be hired now as a typist)..

lividinized
libicinized
l i b i d i n i z e d
I guess it could be libido-ized.. but I Iike my first take on it better, methinks...

.. actually, I think I just invented a new word: lividini.. it's the linguini you have while having a marital argument..

.. hmm.. I think I see several more new words in there:

.. lividinized.. another name for a stroke caused by said linguini..

.. libidinied.. many husbands suffer from this..

.. libidionozed.. it's when your nose resembles a -- oh, never mind..

.. oh, and libicinized.. his Lordship would know this one.. it's a form of euthanasia that involves -- oh, never mind..

.. oh, and lifidinized.. who I believe to be the current leader in Iran.. (might have to fact check that one)..

.. libidinized.. another charismatic Middle Eastern ruler..

.. lividinized.. ibid.

.. livididinzied.. which is when you're livid and frenzied to the point of having a stutter..

.. (okay, I will own that there are days when I should be forcibly kept from my computer)..



.. oh.. as to these mounting edits.. I screwed up a couple of times when I tried to "bronze" this whole number for a later post.. and now I'm adding this verbiage as well..