there is one question that perhaps more than any other gets to the root of who we are and what motivates us what did I need to do in childhood to win the support and approval of my parents we might to sharpen the picture need to lean on a few subsidiary inquiries to please my father I needed to to please my mother I needed to or not to upset my mother I needed to and not to upset my father I needed to whatever might be claimed no family ever gives its Offspring unconditional love there is always
more or less subtly something that one has to do and to be and other things that must at all costs be skirted when we look back the commands may be obvious we needed to do very well at school or be musical or never user our father or little sister in other cases the commands would have been more disguised we would have em bibed a general sense admitted we know not how that making a lot of money was vital or that sex was disgusting or that one's value lay almost entirely in one's looks or sporting ability
and sometimes the commands would have been paradoxical to a degree we are still trying to untangle you must be a winner but if you are we'll feel threatened or try never to grow up because adult women or men frighten me or become extremely attached to me so that I can break your heart however much our attitudes and outlooks might be shaped by our countries of birth by being say Cambodian French or garan we are always first and foremost citizens of those micro republics that we call families by being a seang a b or boyaki each
one of these lands equipped with a hugely idiosyncratic set of laws expectations patriotisms and tyrannies our nations may lend us a certain accent and civil code our birth families tell us what constitutes a real man or woman how much we can esteem ourselves what we have to do to be admired and how much calm and fulfillment we deserve if auditing these conditions of acceptance matters it is because to a far greater extent than we realize they may still be in operation and make no sense at all decades after we left the Republic of Nang Smith
kcoa or banaji we may still be taking immense care not to succeed too much lest we anger a disappointed mother or we're still permanently trying to appease the bad moods of men in Authority in case they lose their temper violently as a father did four decades before or we continue to expect an attack as we did when we were in the hands of a highly damaged caregiver before our sixth birthday if we are still in the mood for some questions we may need to wonder two more things how much am I still doing of what
I had to do back then and how much do I like or dislike the laws of yester year we may find to our disqui that we are continuing to apply to the present a set of edicts that long ago ceased to align with any of our sincere aspirations we continue to act the clown or the meek little girl the terrified victim or daddy's favorite even when the Republic of Home has long been disbanded its Elite resigned and its borders obliterated we may need to take stock of the highly distinctive mini country that we've come from
and in certain cases before we waste yet more time immigrate
