Transformative Experiences and Questions of Parenthood
Insider #145 on life as monument, life as garden.
Dear reader,
Driving home, I heard a conversation on the radio about transformative experiences. Of all things, it began with a discussion about the Twilight movies. And it left me with questions about how we lead our modern lives. I cannot believe it started with a scene from Twilight, but please bear with me.
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In the Twilight movies, teenager Bella wants to become a vampire so she can live forever with her boyfriend Edward who is over 100 years old by the way but we don’t talk about that. Edward is unfazed by the optics of this situation, but is not enthusiastic about turning Bella into a vampire. In the opinion of the guest on the radio program, this is because he does not want her to change from, you know, a very, very foolish teenager. He worries that vampirehood will turn her into a different kind of person (cold, bloodthirsty) with a different outlook on the world (and the murder of innocents).
As it is unsafe to roll your eyes while driving, I reached forward to change the channel. But then the conversation shifted to parenthood, and how that is a transformative experience too. The central question being -
How do you know you are ready to become a parent? And can you know?
The guest argued that most childless people, when considering the prospect of parenthood, take an approach of rational decision-making to make up their minds. See the problem dispassionately, and weigh the pros and cons.
What will you gain? A new, tiny life? Several wonderful responsibilities? The opportunity to mould the future?
What will you lose? The freedom to go out on Friday night? Any notion of a full night’s sleep in the near future? All savings?
But can we be truly rational about a transformative experience? A transformative experience will, by definition, upend your life, your priorities, your goals, your likes, and dislikes. It will literally transform you into a different person.
Can you weigh the pros and cons when the very weight of things will change? Can you make a logical decision for your future self, when you do not know how you will be changed by this experience?
I was pulling into the garage at this point, and the car radio lost its signal. But I continued the chat with my inner voice, and we went back and forth for a while before I ran up to hug my wife and kiss little Rohan.
Me: Rational decision-making is a very particular trait of modern humanity, isn’t it? We value rationality over everything else. We pride ourselves on our ability to not be swayed by emotions, and to take stock of reality with cold, hard numbers.
Other Me: Yes, the reality of cold, hard numbers! Perhaps what is modern is the invasion of numbers into all aspects of human thought, of self-optimization and consumerism, and same-day Prime deliveries, of the idea of becoming anything because life has no limits, of the idea of becoming everything because otherwise you are nothing, of quantitative analyses as the truth… Maybe everything that promised to make us superhuman actually makes us subhuman.
Me: Maybe we are unable to commit because so much of the world is in our control. We can see the future. And when we cannot, we get mad. We cannot commit without a clearly defined ROI. Game theory forbids it.
Other Me: You are too busy building the ‘monument of your life’ to afford a distraction like this, a wrecking ball in the middle of careful construction.
Me: Speak for yourself!
Other Me: Maybe architecture is not the best way to look at a human life.
Me: Maybe all Towers of all Babels are meant to crash and burn.
Maybe we were meant to be gardeners? To embrace the cycles of life in our world, and nature, and all kinds of unknown forces? Maybe we need to believe in ecosystems again. I think now of parenthood Whatsapp groups, and Facebook marketplace, and people at the gym who ask why you haven’t been coming and smile when you explain why. Maybe we need to connect with each other on a human level, and nothing is more humanizing than the helpless, clueless, bumbling, sleep-deprived wretch that young parenthood makes of you. Maybe we should embrace destruction and death. Like the death of old ideas, old health goals, and the old jeans you have had since college. In a garden, old death feeds new life. But of a monument, death can only make a mausoleum - musty, abandoned, empty.
Me: Is Twilight really so profound?
Other Me: Everyone wants sparkly skin, but at what cost?
For a better story about vampires not turning other people into vampires because they are afraid of the transformative experience, I recommend What We Do In The Shadows.
Dear reader, tell me about a transformative experience that made you a better person.
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Parenthood has been the single most radical transformation in my life and I keep writing poems about it, because there is not a single aspect of my being that hasn't been influenced by it. For me, as a mother of a mentally disabled child, that meant confronting my worst fears again and again, still trying to better myself: be more patient, be even more empathetic than before, open to life's curveballs and dealing with what is instead of what I'd wish there was. I am a flawed human, as all of us, and my daughter is a mirror. I know I'm not perfect, far from it, but I wake up each day trying to be good enough for her, for my son and our family. I guess letting go of this idea that things should be a certain way, and seizing the chances that present themselves to me to have a better day-to-day quality of life by turning to what has true meaning has been what's changed most. And letting go of people that are no good for us.
At the risk of sounding prosaic, parenthood definitely changed me. I'd always been a highly empathetic person, but somehow parenthood made it easier for me to access compassion.
"Maybe we need to believe in ecosystems again." Yes!