Father Figures

Daily Meditation 1,052–1/21/2025

Think back to your childhood, to your father.

Was he “involved?”
Did he read to you daily?
Bring you on walks, teaching you the trees and birds of the world?
How about bringing you into religious texts or into moralistic ways of life?
Did your father love you and teach you?
Did he lead you and your household?
Maybe he adopted you, making the choice to love you.

Or, was it the inverse — was he never there? Had he passed on many years ago? Or was just the “sperm donor?” Maybe, perhaps worst of all, he was a genuine bastard of a man who hurt you and your family.

Here’s the meditation for today:

Either way, your father has taught you how to act.

In the first case, he showed you what a good man looks like.
In the second, he showed you what a good man DOESN’T look like.

As you go into the world — as a father or as “just” a man, always bear in mind the presence of others who will inevitably perceive you in that “father figure” light.

So act in a manner consistent with the person you’d like to be to them.