My Response To Steve's Letter

I have had almost 3 weeks to consider my friend Steve's stark and unrelenting honesty. It took me aback at first. I adopted Steve's position relative to what he perceived as being my 'inauthenticity' since becoming a father. It was nearly 2 weeks of me examining my motives and recent decisions over the past 12 to 18 months. I melded with Steve's perspective. And in doing so I hated my self---- I hated life!

That's when it dawned on. Steve was totally right. I was being inauthentic. I was lying to myself. I was being less than perfectly honest with people close to me. But it was not with who Steve thought it was. I was, instead, and perhaps to Steve's dismay, being inauthentic in relationship to him.

___________________________________________________

Steve assumed--as did I--that we were still comrades fighting the same old battles against the world. It was Steve and I against conventionality. It was Steve and I refusing to conform to conventional wisdom. It was Steve and I out on the limb. It was Steve and I distancing ourselves from those whom we assumed 'just didn't get it.' It was always Steve and I as long as I can remember.

Then I became a Father. Then, more properly put, I became responsible for caring for another being in ways unimaginable to me before. That's where Steve and I diverged.

__________________________________________________

I was the one to try and maintain the frienship. Even with all of Steve's spewing forth about suicide and ranting against the world, I still attempted to connect with him. I still tried to empathize with him. Even to the point of denying myself the realization of what I now know.

Like I have already mentioned, I wrestled with what Steve had shared with me in his letter about me 'giving in' and becoming increasingly 'inauthentic' since engaging parenthood. I think part of me assumed that Steve was right. I respected Steve's opinion maybe too much. Now I know that.

I know that because in adopting Steve's perspective as my own I was feeling less and less enamoured with the prospects of living. I felt how much 'hatred' and 'spite' there was in Steve's view. I wore those clothes Steve. I put on the glasses you told me to look through and the world became a dark and foreboding place indeed!

___________________________________________________

Something Steve doesn't understand is that I don't have the luxury (if you want to call it that) to enagage philosophically in the ways I once did. My existence is far more practical now---and I ought to mention, far more meaningful. I have to constantly forego the tendency within me to want to disengage from the world around me by entering into philosophical rhetoric about this, that, and the other thing. I can't piss and moan about the world nearly as much as Steve can because I have the duty of caring for a little boy who looks to me for support, guidance, love, strength, wisdom, understanding, instruction, and nurturing.

Steve cannot possibly understand that. He has no reference point. His experiential base (though he will never admit this as far as I can tell) is such that he cannot possibly empathize with me. He hasn't tasted the fruits of parenthood and the kind of care and compassion it elicits. Which is why his words ring shallow--if not empty--to me now.