My dear daughter,
Happy 5th birthday!
Oh, the most precious pearl of my life, mama loves you so so so much, with all my life and all my might. Every day you ask me the same question: "Mama how much you love me? Do you love me more than I love you?" I have already run out of different ways to describe, but you should know that every time mama looks at you, there are thousands of butterflies dancing in my heart, and without any doubt, mama could die a million times for you.
You are five now! For the past five years, you and I, we have never been separated for more than a few hours. When we are together, we have always been kissing and hugging, immersing in each other's embrace, loving each other. I have the strongest attachment to you, you too with me. I don't know how much luckier a mother can be.
When you were just born, I got to spent the first 2 years, that is a complete 14 months/730 days with you. You were always on me, drinking milk or sucking to get comfort, every 1-2 hours, day and night. When you were awake, we were always lying somewhere together, enjoying the sun, tickling and feeling funny together.
For the past 5 years, not even one night you have slept without me. In a few hours into your night sleep, when you realize that I am not there, you call out to me, and in a flash, I'm in your bed. Of course, I had tried to train you to sleep alone, but how much you cried, hours and hours in the midnight or early morning hours, you'd never given up for once no matter how exhausted you were. It broke our hearts and yes, you won.
Mama couldn't completely comprehend the situation and was worried that I was making mistakes, so at first, I tried to ask around. Not the doctors and pediatricians, but ordinary people who are genuinely content and satisfied with themselves - "Did you grow up sleeping in the same bed with your mom?" The answers were mostly relieving, many women from Eastern cultures had someone to sleep by their side while growing up, till early or even late teens. I also read into people's statements in various online groups, turned out that there were some children who truly felt scared and vulnerable at night, and when that happened, most people who wrote the statements didn't leave the kids alone, they co-slept for years.
Then I started to connect the dots or coming up with my own theories if that's more accurate to describe: girls are emotional creatures (some boys are more sensitive to others as well), if for any reason a baby girl is not ready to let go of something just yet, considering how little she is, you better help her achieve the emotional satisfaction first, then think about whatever the next step is.
Actually, if I put down phrases like "girls' are hardwired to be more emotional, boys' are more systemizing", it might seem outdated considering where the current researches stand. I believe there are definitely some innate differences between boys and girls, but coming from where and to what degree, we should all be cautious about molding our daughters and sons into certain stereotypes that societies have been doing to us unfairly for thousands of years.
I do find you and your brother hardwired very differently, and some of the propensities do fit into the conventional doctrines about boys and girls, partially. Don't get me wrong, we have never been consciously or unconsciously disabling any of your potential abilities. It's just that when it comes to the differences between you two, we turn to grab the ready knowledge to better explain the situation. Maybe that's wrong, maybe we should just focus on the specific dispositions in the two of you, instead of generalizing.
Ok, let's stick to "Aditi and Shiva", instead of "boys and girls". So my theory is, if an infant or a young child, either a boy or a girl, is not ready to let go of something emotionally, as guardians, we better first help her or him finish that course to completion, then we can build something on top. If you leave a young heart unsatisfied and deprived of intimacy and attention in terms of feeding, interacting, or tending to special needs, you are actually digging a hole in that young heart. And that kid could grow up wasting all his or her life to try to fill that hole that is only growing wider and deeper.
For example, as an infant, you love to suck much more than your brother, so I let you. Considering the drawbacks of pacifiers, I preferred my own breasts for you (also because you are privileged to have a stay-home mommy with you). With my breasts and your own fingers, it took you two years to get over the sucking phase. After I weaned you off breastfeeding, you gradually stopped sucking your fingers too, never a fuzz, no looking back, as if you'd never been there. Only a few times when you were about three and a half to four years old, out of nowhere, you held a playful smile at the corner of your eyes and told me: "Mommy, I remember sucking your milk, it's like this -- ah!"
So ya, mama is keeping an eye on the course of co-sleeping with you, one day in the future, we should figure out when it shall reach its conclusion. You are indeed scared of the dark and monsters, and that's exactly like me. I often ask myself "what did I want when I was little and scared, and how did that impact me?" And you know what, I think the reason that I had a chance to grow into a confident and strong woman with a bulletproof heart despite all the difficulties, was the unconditional love and attentive care my parents had given me. Although there were many circumstances in the general setting, they left absolutely no crack in my heart as a daughter and as a woman, while bringing me up. For that, I am grateful to them eternally.
My beautiful daughter Aditi, you are such a naughty defiant intelligent independent strong-headed persistent strengthful compassionate mindful witty articulate little girl leader! Ah, I lost my way of language when I'm describing you, just throwing in all the adjectives and nouns! Yes, you are gonna be someone, someday, just like the birth dream indicated while I was pregnant with you. Such magical events don't happen very often indeed.
How funny when a person like me who was brought up under a communists-run totalitarian regime where religion and freedom of conscience are strictly forbidden, a person like me whose consciousness had been intentionally shaped, altered, and monitored from day one, nevertheless, it was not too hard for me to find the path leading to a hidden garden of spirituality. I guess philosophy and spirituality, "where did we come from and where are we going to", "what is our purpose and the meaning of being", these questions are some innate yearnings deep in any human's consciousness. Just like us human's fundamental desire for freedom and love.
Ah, Philosophy. How about mama starts introducing different philosophers to you, now that you turned five? The first and most interesting philosopher I want you to know - Nietzsche. I'm sorry almost all of the great minds in the world that you're gonna learn, are males. It's just an ugly fact about us humans, accept it as part of history, but don't give in to it as part of the future.
Nietzsche, a giant dynamic being with multidimensions, a person full of passion for life, longing for living, and a warrior full of courage to initiate change. He is on the top of the list for my recommendation to you because I see the same energy and bravery blasting out from your beautiful body and mind.
Do you dare to challenge the old and powerful? Can you earn your truth as a free thinker in front of the authority? "God is Dead." Nietzsche's existence showed us how powerful can one single person's mind be, which was even able to flip thousands of years of settlements, instilling fundamental inquiries such as "Christian Morality" and the "Spiritual Crisis of the West" into the system.
Nietzsche tried his whole life to unleash one's limitation in pursuing one's own spiritual power, going against the restraints imposed by Judeo-Christianity doctrines and moral conformity. Do you believe in his concept of Overman and Eternal Return? Do you agree with him that Socrates and Plato took the West (Europe) into a mad pursuit of Rationality and Morality, forgetting about the enlightenment and the power of the Art of Greek Tragedy? Do you agree with him that the rise of the West was simply a result of Apollonian outweighing Dionysian? When facing the ultimate dilemma as in “The Myth of Sisyphus”, will you give the "same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain" new meanings and life?
"All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." Yes, despite the support from Hitler, Fascism, Aryanism, Casteism and Antifeminism, which could be the result of dynamic interpretation under the influence of power, I do believe Nietzsche had his own limitation caused by certain circumstances.
First is the lack of knowledge of Eastern religious thoughts and cultures. I wonder if he was well acquainted with the correct depiction of Hinduism and the colorful mythologies and philosophies that originated in Ancient India. Instead of losing faith in Judeo-Christianity entirely, would he find a bridge in between various creeds and restore faith in faith? I wonder if he was familiar with how the Hindus consider "each human being has a god/goddess resides in him/her", would he shine some new lights on his concept of Overman and Eternal Return? I wonder if he was able to acquire the true knowledge of different religions in the other parts of the world, and the shine of the other parts of the world was not hidden away by domination and oppression under colonization, would he still die in loneliness and madness, and believed "his time is in the future"?
The second of his circumstance was the imbalance of power between two different genders. It had been like that for thousands of years, he had seen nothing but, and he was not lucky enough to witness the change. I wonder if he had seen the eruption of the powerful volcanos with his own eyes, would he be so excited to run back home and write down a new volume of books centering the female force and become the leading philosopher to shape the path to feminism, as well as enriching his mind and life experience with it.
Anyways, each human being has his/her own circumstances, and most of the time all we can do is moving forward no matter what. And always remember that you are standing on the shoulders of the giants, so don't forget to use their height to see further.
At last, let me share a paragraph of Nietzsche's words with you, let it inspire you and encourage you:
“But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?”
Love for always
Mama
Sep 21, 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment