The Family


I am thinking about being a family...

After a jazz concert performed in a grand shopping mall, my wife and daughter went to the cinema to see Tim Burton's last movie, Alice in Wonderland. Then I stepped into an Italian restaurant located in the mall and ordered a pizza margherita and a glass of red wine.

I was alone... Having a book on my table as usual... I was reading a couple of lines then watching the other tables. I like watching people... There were a group of three women living their 40s and a young couple in the restaurant. The book I was reading was about irrationality. I was reading, learning, thinking, listening to others in the restaurant...

After a while, a family of 5 persons came and seated beside my table. A son, 2 daughters, mom and dad...
They were speaking Spanish... At first sight, I loved the scene. The kids were energetic, full of life; father was calm and lofty, mother was cute after giving birth three times. The family was looking awesome indeed.

I really tried to understand this feeling: Having more than 1 child as a man. How can this feel? Creating new individuals and taking care of them. Being a "senior" father and a husband. I tried to empathize...
You are a man, loving a woman, having 3 kids, having a good job and a family car. Is it the real meaning of being a man? Can a man be considered man enough without having a wife or kids?

Being a large family... My external opinion about the large families is that the variety of fresh existences of a young man and a woman becomes the existences of 3 kids who are full of energy. Man gets weaker, woman gets bushed, life goes on... A family with multiple children is like a pot where you melt down your vital energy and then, you pour it into the spirits of your kids. Is this the real meaning of being a man? A strong guy who can hadle toughest issues, who is a warrior, who gives lives and who takes lives when necessary, who can compromise, whose heart is full of love. A man who takes the woman away, who can set up a world and make it last...

Wow! What a man? Are you that sort of a man?

There exist lots of ancient, modern and holy books about being a woman. Their dilemmas, problems, solutions, organizations, clothes, shoes, needs etc. However, I cannot remember well known works of art which examine the man as an object and a subject. Because the man is considered as the default form of human beings. Men are thorough and simple. Nothing more to say about men. Men are men! Gods are men! And men are gods! Plus, being a man is usually defined by using clichés: You can be a family guy, who can sacrifice, or you can be a free spirit, an excursionist who merely amuses himself. Are there any intermediate forms between those 2 stereotypes? Are there passages between them? What if you use those passages to see the other side if they exist?

Nature may show us the right answers. Lions, apes, wolves, birds, whales... How do they found and perpetuate families?  

I know that I have just asked questions in this post. I have got no answers, but the questions.

Oh Life...

I wanna flow like water...

Great life!

P.S. After a couple of days I had written this article, I started to read the book Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality by Jared Diamond and I think this book has got the answers to my questions.