hummingwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hummingwolf) wrote2002-02-09 08:02 pm
hummingwolf) wrote2002-02-09 08:02 pm
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The last few years of my father's life, all my arguments with him seemed to end the same way.
Dad (melodramatically): Is that any way to Honor Thy Father?
Me: Of course it is! My father always taught me to question authority.
Dad: Oh yeah, I did. What'd I have to go and do that for? That was dumb.
~~~~~
I sometimes wish I could be the kind of person who would blindly accept what they were told rather than questioning everything. Life seems so much easier for people who know without having to think. When I was in college, I actually yelled at my father once, "WHY did you make it impossible for me to just believe what people tell me?" The people who always bought the party line, the various flavors of fundamentalist, the people who believed their professors were infallible, even members of scary freaky religious cults all seemed to be happier than I was. In the face of my anger at the unfairness of it all, my father seemed almost contrite.
~~~~~
Today I was reading something that made me scream "NO! NO! NO!" with every cell of my being. I'm so unaccustomed to certainty, I keep wondering if I rejected what I read not because I believe it to be untrue but because I'm afraid that it could be true.
You know, if I hadn't had to ask so many questions all the time, I'd probably have gotten more dates in college.
Dad (melodramatically): Is that any way to Honor Thy Father?
Me: Of course it is! My father always taught me to question authority.
Dad: Oh yeah, I did. What'd I have to go and do that for? That was dumb.
~~~~~
I sometimes wish I could be the kind of person who would blindly accept what they were told rather than questioning everything. Life seems so much easier for people who know without having to think. When I was in college, I actually yelled at my father once, "WHY did you make it impossible for me to just believe what people tell me?" The people who always bought the party line, the various flavors of fundamentalist, the people who believed their professors were infallible, even members of scary freaky religious cults all seemed to be happier than I was. In the face of my anger at the unfairness of it all, my father seemed almost contrite.
~~~~~
Today I was reading something that made me scream "NO! NO! NO!" with every cell of my being. I'm so unaccustomed to certainty, I keep wondering if I rejected what I read not because I believe it to be untrue but because I'm afraid that it could be true.
You know, if I hadn't had to ask so many questions all the time, I'd probably have gotten more dates in college.