Reflections of Lucy
My friends Ian and Tessa are now Dad and Mom. Welcome to Earth, Lucy Kent Blake-Williams!
Read a beautiful post Ian wrote about that
Inevitably, I've been thinking a lot about that. There are four of us, good friends since university. I'm the only one not married yet. Ian is the first to become a father.
The child is beautiful!
What makes a newborn more lovable than the rest of us, though? On the one hand, it's intuitively obvious, and evolutionarily necessary. Newborns are helpless, for one thing, and vulnerable, and so natural selection would seem more than just likely to favor strong protective, loving emotions towards babies.
In a more poetic sense, babies are all potential, a big bundle of stem cells, with a capacity for change the rest of us only had. Likewise, while a lot more of our future is genetically determined than we like to admit, and while randomness (chaos) plays a big role in what becomes of us, a lot of our 'fate' is our own doing, and the infant has a much broader range of future choices and possibilities than the rest of us do.
Again, this is probably so obvious to most as to be completely unremarkable.
But bear with me, if you can, because I've always seemed to be on a different page than most folks in regard to human reproduction. I once asked a woman who wanted to be a mother just why she wanted to be a mom, and she couldn't give me an answer. I still don't know if that was because she considered the answer too obvious, or whether it was too obscure.
I mean, I know why the human race needs babies, that much is obvious, but as to why any given individual wants to reproduce.... It's instinctive, I think.
Most people, I think, assume parenting will make them happier than remaining childless, despite ample evidence to the contrary. [Link One] and [Link Two] But really, I think most people just don't really consider that they have a choice.
In a different vein, Lucy's arrival has made me aware that, not only babies, but each one of us humans is, well, divine. Each one of us was, on the day we were born, the most important person to at least one other person (their mother), and probably to a host of others. Each one of us was that bundle of stem cells, and we all faced that seemingly-limitless horizon of possibilities with the zen-like awareness that comes naturally when you see everything for the first time.
My point is that, we're still that person. We are - each one of us is - every bit as special and important as we obviously were to our mothers on the day we were born. Each one of us is capable of great change, and faces a world full of possibilities. It's right there in front of us. We just have to see it the right way, always as if for the first time.
Thank you, Lucy, for helping me to see that!
Read a beautiful post Ian wrote about that
Inevitably, I've been thinking a lot about that. There are four of us, good friends since university. I'm the only one not married yet. Ian is the first to become a father.
The child is beautiful!
What makes a newborn more lovable than the rest of us, though? On the one hand, it's intuitively obvious, and evolutionarily necessary. Newborns are helpless, for one thing, and vulnerable, and so natural selection would seem more than just likely to favor strong protective, loving emotions towards babies.
In a more poetic sense, babies are all potential, a big bundle of stem cells, with a capacity for change the rest of us only had. Likewise, while a lot more of our future is genetically determined than we like to admit, and while randomness (chaos) plays a big role in what becomes of us, a lot of our 'fate' is our own doing, and the infant has a much broader range of future choices and possibilities than the rest of us do.
Again, this is probably so obvious to most as to be completely unremarkable.
But bear with me, if you can, because I've always seemed to be on a different page than most folks in regard to human reproduction. I once asked a woman who wanted to be a mother just why she wanted to be a mom, and she couldn't give me an answer. I still don't know if that was because she considered the answer too obvious, or whether it was too obscure.
I mean, I know why the human race needs babies, that much is obvious, but as to why any given individual wants to reproduce.... It's instinctive, I think.
Most people, I think, assume parenting will make them happier than remaining childless, despite ample evidence to the contrary. [Link One] and [Link Two] But really, I think most people just don't really consider that they have a choice.
In a different vein, Lucy's arrival has made me aware that, not only babies, but each one of us humans is, well, divine. Each one of us was, on the day we were born, the most important person to at least one other person (their mother), and probably to a host of others. Each one of us was that bundle of stem cells, and we all faced that seemingly-limitless horizon of possibilities with the zen-like awareness that comes naturally when you see everything for the first time.
My point is that, we're still that person. We are - each one of us is - every bit as special and important as we obviously were to our mothers on the day we were born. Each one of us is capable of great change, and faces a world full of possibilities. It's right there in front of us. We just have to see it the right way, always as if for the first time.
Thank you, Lucy, for helping me to see that!
posted by Warrior of the Woods at 9:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home