"The harshness of the straight line

Perhaps humanity lost something essential when it stopped raising children in community. In those early times, children grew up held by many arms, still unaware of the concept of “mother” or “father.”Since around 3000 B.C., society has been organized around patriarchy, and ever since, the relationships between parents and children have been witnesses to—and participants in—the natural tension shaped by power dynamics passed down through generations.

But why does the relationship we cultivate with our parents leave such a lasting mark on us throughout our lives?Why does it shape so much of our adult behavior?Why this urge to relive our memories in other arms, to project unreachable expectations, without understanding that love is the ability to give and to open ourselves to new experiences?

We tend to judge our parents with the precision of an arrow that, once released, cannot return to the bow.Sometimes the judgment is accurate; other times, it misses the mark—yet we still feel entitled to launch it.The reasons don’t matter as much as recognizing the moment we began to separate from them:that quiet instant when we stopped being an extension of our parents and felt, for the first time, the power of being ourselves—and perhaps, the pain of separation.

Maybe the consequences of our actions would be less dramatic in a society less burdened by guilt—a society that taught us more to understand than to judge.Because when we are able to look at our parents with tenderness, something inside us softens.We stop aiming outward and begin to turn inward.

Then, the bow ceases to be a weapon and becomes an extension of ourselves.Each arrow becomes a new intention: to love without demanding, to understand without judging,to follow our own flight, trusting that we will reach our own targets—and accepting that life is not a straight line.

Ortega y Gasset once wrote: "I am myself and my circumstances, and if I do not save my circumstances, I do not save myself."

And so, our parents were also, once, children of their own circumstances.They too longed for guidance they may never have received.They too were disappointed.They too did what they could with what they knew.

Sometimes, we expect a perfection from them that no one could embody.

But when we remember that they too walked through life with fear, with doubt, with dreams left unfulfilled,judgment transforms into understanding.

If we were held in safe arms as children, we likely learned how to trust.And if we weren’t, life offers us the chance to rebuild that trust—layer by layer—from our own capacity to give.

Then, the mark left by the wounded child becomes a doorway,and behind the pain, we discover the tenderness that made us possible,and the mystery of being here, today.

Perhaps, we might even be grateful for what hurt us—for becoming the very thing that gave us the strength to take flight.

CFC