Sunday 20 June 2010

Thank you Mr Larkin....

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.


Sadly, I believe Mr Larkin to be correct. I wonder though just how much I have fecked up my 3 kids?! Thing is though,as parents we're not issued with a handbook guide on how not to feck them up.
We do our best though, as long as we love them & teach them to love & respect others then I believe we're on the right track.

2 comments:

  1. Try this:
    http://quizfarm.com/run.php/QuizRunner

    I came out pretty even on all of the various PDs - which I'm taking as a sign of my well-rounded personality! I was highest scoring on O-CPD though.

    The thing is, we've all got PD traits. All of us. Anyone who says they haven't is a psychopath!

    In the same way as I've got scars on my skin from some of the unfortunate physical things that have happened to me, I carry scars from the unfortunate emotional things that have happened to me - these are your PD traits. As life is about overcoming a series of unfortunate physical and emotional occurrences, this must be 'Normal'.

    To push the simile to its limits - the true personality disorder is like a facial disfigurement compared to a chicken pox scar.

    Now, you and I, Wool, are - I think it's fair to say - somewhat eccentric characters. A good deal of this eccentricity is derived from our PD traits which were handed to us by, in our case, our mothers' personality disorders (my mother sounds remarkably like yours).

    But, and here's my point: I reckon that we fall within 'normal' parameters. (I heard a wonderful description of personality disorder by a bloke on the radio a while back. He said that you could re-name the News: "What The Personality Disorders Have Been Doing Today."

    Of course, the DSM likes to classify every rough edge/peccadillo/idiosyncrasy as a symptom. However, it's these rough edges that make the World go round: Without people's rough edges there would be no music, no art, no politics, no business. it'd be like one of those planets Captain Kirk got beamed onto in the 70's Star Trek episodes, where they'd resolved EVERYTHING and it was a boring disaster.

    As The Chi-lites said, "If everybody looked the same, We'd get tired of looking at each other."
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5Qu3WfJJY

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  2. I would agree wih everything you so wisely say John. We all have PD traits within our damaged personalities, likewise we all posess traits of OCD, psychosis et al. All of us are/have been damaged & scared by past relationships as you again, so wisely say.
    Thank you John.
    x

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