A Life Lived
How strangely we see ourselves. It's a characteristic of universal human nature. Not to see ourselves necessarily as we are - or our backgrounds, our experiences, our personal, social interactions, our values and commitments - but as we would prefer ourselves to be seen. We would like onlookers to see us in the most positive of ways, as exemplary human beings. More than that, though, we don't, often, wish to admit to ourselves that there is cause to see ourselves as less than what we would prefer.
As a result, there are those among us who give themselves reason to see themselves as superior in intelligence and achievement. Those upon whom the world smiles kindly. Appropriating the opportunities that might be offered others, and proffering them instead to the charismatic among us, the self-confident, those seen to be high-achievers. Even if, for the most part, their achievements are mostly seen in the breach, in their ability to activate the admiration of others through their persuasive powers of speech.
It's possible that U.S. President Barack Obama is just such a one. His belief in himself appears unshakable, despite set-backs in his agenda for impressing on the world the vision of a new America, through his skilled, knowing and manipulatively skillful hands; a team-player on the international scene. No longer a country whose vision is primarily dedicated to itself, but one that sees beyond the present and encourages others to do likewise.
Unfortunately, many of those 'others', representing countries whose agendas are inimical to those of world peace, see things otherwise.
On a more personal level there is the fondness of memory that Mr. Obama has written of with respect to his father. Barack Obama knew his mother, and his mother's mother, for he lived with them, they brought him to maturity and imbued him with their values and the imperatives by which he now lives. He lived in a white man's world, as a biracial child of America and Africa. He envisioned his father far more than he actually knew him.
And for Barack Obama his father was a noble man with a kindly disposition and honourable aspirations, a decent man to whom he owed much; part of his genetic inheritance and his living heritage. As an adult, conflicted in part, and determining in the final analysis that the world would always view him as a black man. Immersing himself in black culture, but never forgetting nor rejecting his white inheritance, he is post-racial, a religious-humanist.
But his father married four times, resulting in his fathering no fewer than eight children. Barack Obama has an extended family, with seven half-siblings. Why might his father have married four times? Obviously irresistible to women, who may have respected his intelligence and his worldliness. But an abusive man, one who obviously intended to control his world and his women.
In his own memoirs, (written as an autobiographical novel) Barack Obama's younger half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, who also was raised in the United States, in Boston, has far closer memories of that same man, their father. As one who threatened and physically abused, and who was often drunk. "I can remember my father hitting my mother and me. They're memories I don't like to dwell on because it's very painful for me", explained Mr. Ndesandjo, in an interview.
Their father died, while working in his home country of Kenya as a government economist. He died in a car crash, driving drunk, in 1982. Not all that much an honourable man, after all. A well-educated, well-travelled man, but he obviously battled his own not-very-nice inclinations toward menacing women and children, and unsuccessfully battling the dragons of his alcoholism.
A far, far cry from his oldest son's coherently reasonable embrace of a sober lifestyle, his cleaving to one woman alone, his beyond-reproach view of human relations and life's opportunities, his acceptance of duty and justice and human rights. Only the reality of the practise is slightly askew, slightly flawed.
But then, as the optimists claim, there is always room for improvement.
As a result, there are those among us who give themselves reason to see themselves as superior in intelligence and achievement. Those upon whom the world smiles kindly. Appropriating the opportunities that might be offered others, and proffering them instead to the charismatic among us, the self-confident, those seen to be high-achievers. Even if, for the most part, their achievements are mostly seen in the breach, in their ability to activate the admiration of others through their persuasive powers of speech.
It's possible that U.S. President Barack Obama is just such a one. His belief in himself appears unshakable, despite set-backs in his agenda for impressing on the world the vision of a new America, through his skilled, knowing and manipulatively skillful hands; a team-player on the international scene. No longer a country whose vision is primarily dedicated to itself, but one that sees beyond the present and encourages others to do likewise.
Unfortunately, many of those 'others', representing countries whose agendas are inimical to those of world peace, see things otherwise.
On a more personal level there is the fondness of memory that Mr. Obama has written of with respect to his father. Barack Obama knew his mother, and his mother's mother, for he lived with them, they brought him to maturity and imbued him with their values and the imperatives by which he now lives. He lived in a white man's world, as a biracial child of America and Africa. He envisioned his father far more than he actually knew him.
And for Barack Obama his father was a noble man with a kindly disposition and honourable aspirations, a decent man to whom he owed much; part of his genetic inheritance and his living heritage. As an adult, conflicted in part, and determining in the final analysis that the world would always view him as a black man. Immersing himself in black culture, but never forgetting nor rejecting his white inheritance, he is post-racial, a religious-humanist.
But his father married four times, resulting in his fathering no fewer than eight children. Barack Obama has an extended family, with seven half-siblings. Why might his father have married four times? Obviously irresistible to women, who may have respected his intelligence and his worldliness. But an abusive man, one who obviously intended to control his world and his women.
In his own memoirs, (written as an autobiographical novel) Barack Obama's younger half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, who also was raised in the United States, in Boston, has far closer memories of that same man, their father. As one who threatened and physically abused, and who was often drunk. "I can remember my father hitting my mother and me. They're memories I don't like to dwell on because it's very painful for me", explained Mr. Ndesandjo, in an interview.
Their father died, while working in his home country of Kenya as a government economist. He died in a car crash, driving drunk, in 1982. Not all that much an honourable man, after all. A well-educated, well-travelled man, but he obviously battled his own not-very-nice inclinations toward menacing women and children, and unsuccessfully battling the dragons of his alcoholism.
A far, far cry from his oldest son's coherently reasonable embrace of a sober lifestyle, his cleaving to one woman alone, his beyond-reproach view of human relations and life's opportunities, his acceptance of duty and justice and human rights. Only the reality of the practise is slightly askew, slightly flawed.
But then, as the optimists claim, there is always room for improvement.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 7:55 PM
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