Drop

Tonight I realized

after speaking with my father from my truth

that he seems to always take on the role of teacher

whenever he speaks in close and intimate conversations.

Teaching is his vocation and avocation

It is how he connected with his children

And it is the role he still holds with them, almost 50 years later.

And if the child does not question that role of the teacher

then he inevitably embodies the role of the student

and cannot stand on equal ground

and cannot discuss as a true peer

for every word of the teacher becomes a truth, a hint, or a test

no matter if the student attends to it or not.

Most often as an adult the student pushes his words aside

as unwelcome corrections to his path

as unrequested advice

even when the teacher did not mean it so.

But this evasiveness does not dissolve the roles.

Rather it pretends the words are not there

with a hidden spirit of rebelliousness

which inevitably fosters guilt and wrong-doing,

piling up with the rest of it in the basement

because that is all the student role can muster

if it does not listen to its teacher.

For these roles are dug in

deep in the psyche

beyond the memories of the toddler

who could not assert his will,

and had to somehow reconcile his frustrated helplessness with reality

time and time again, resulting in eventual fracture

between intent and act.

Denied behind the unconscious triggers of the father

who could not bear the child to be what he feared

to embody those fragments he once broke off and hid away from view.

Behind the triggers that could not bear to see in his child

the memories that recalled his own fears and shames.

When the child realizes these roles

his first impulse is to prove them

to expand upon them in didactic fashion

clearly and logic-tight

and to bring them to the father

to prove how wrong these roles are

to prove how wrong his attitude is.

Yet this impulse is yet again

the student seeking to please the teacher.

To prove the teacher wrong, and thereby gain his respect.

The reward of validation from the teacher,

so high a prize desired,

though in reality nothing but another carrot in the goaded race.

Fodder for the fire of continued illusion.

Of believing that freedom lies "just beyond that next level".

There is no next level.

There was never a next level.

Only playthings meant to build our skills

but which many of us forget

were just convenient make-believe.

The role of the student cannot be fulfilled.

Its finish line is the endless horizon.

As long as the student plays he remains a student.

Then one day he simply remembers

he does not need to play.

Walking away from the playground

cannot be done by the use of any plaything in it

no matter how masterfully it is used.

Walking away from the stage

needs no validation from any other actor.

Not even from the director.

It is just a dropping

of the tools and trinkets

of the long-held script

that no one could ever teach him how to drop.