Besides 42 for the Adams fans out there, what do those three words mean to you? Does a person, a face, an object, or an event come to mind? Or perhaps nothing more than a mere thought, an instant of consideration on what I mean by the title. In truth, it is really nothing more than just a springboard of sorts for me to gather my thoughts, and something I just wanted to have my readers, few as they may be, think about. Indeed, I have so little natural creativity that I need some sort of... starting point to build off of, to branch off from. And here we go:
The most basic fact of all forms of life is interaction. Whether you are a squid, a coelacanth, a daisy, cyanobacteria, or any other form of life, you interact, not only with your environment, but with other creatures as well by eating them, playing with them, helping them, etc. As humans, we interact with each other socially, through speech, writing, drama, and other forms of expression. This sort of necessary social interaction combines with our natural need for organization to produce social units of interaction, like a family or society as a whole. At which point, however, does one progress from one unit to the next? We are all born into a family of some sort, be it a fractured one or one that no longer exists. For the more fortunate among us who manage to retain at least one person to guide us through the earlier stages of life, that person or those people, whether related to us or not, essentially become our surrogate parents, provided that they were not our parents to begin with. These people.... as we progress through life, they appear to become less important to us in a sense, as the onset of puberty and eventual maturity brings us to a stage of semi to complete independence, in which we no longer need to depend on these people for comfort, food, or shelter, leaving that basic biological bond behind. How does one truly decipher what is left of the familial relationship then? There can be no real prior experience to show you how to proceed, and you flounder, looking for the right balance of affection and aloofness, wanting to be self-sufficient and your own person, while sometimes still seeking the warmth and comfort you know to have been in place, all your life, with the people who raised you. Is it a crime, then, to say that one does not feel a real connection with one's family then? Is it criminal to feel free after being released from the shackles of bonds formed from biological needs? There are few things that one could ever do to repay the debt of people spending years in their lives raising you, yet if a person simply does not feel a real, lasting bond with them, is the appropriate course to talk with them, trying to work out a way less painful than simple rejection of the people who raised you, or to accept that the years spent together were merely biological in nature, at least on one side of the family? It may seem callous of me to ask, but how much of human emotion is really based on biological instinct, and how much on conscious thought, on higher thinking and well-defined feelings? Having stated the above, I find that it is much simpler to accept that emotions are things that simply cannot be reasoned with, much less thought about logically-this goes against their very nature. One can only wrestle with their own feelings for so long... Eventually you either give in, destroy those feelings, or go insane. There are few alternatives, aside from perhaps repressing the emotions or dismissing them, but these are only temporary solutions for a larger problem.
Please do excuse the rant above... It is rather late in the night and I had an urge to write, so I got on the keyboard and saw what sprung from my fingertips given the title. Perhaps I'll go back to it at some point, to either go on with the title or what I've said in the wall of text above. Feel free to comment on everything I've said, whether you disagree, agree, or just want to say something. You're also welcome to comment with your own reactions to the title, as it is rather open-ended.
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It's not really evil to want away from your orginal family, but you have to think about it before you do anything rash. Keep in mind that these people did raise you and on some level love you. You can't just drop them because you feel as though you don't need them anymore. They deserve respect. You should keep contact, of course. As you're older, consider developing a relationship with your family that is not required of being raised by them. Try to see them as others see them. Erase your bias that you have from spending your life with them. If you and your family don't mesh at all, even with effort, then gently remove yourself.
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