Here I am, after a long, beautiful day during which I spend four hours lunching with my cousin and talking about God and the world, spending time with my children, cuddling and talking, making them feel special, my 18-year-old son Tajun is meeting a friend outside and the girls are now in bed. I was watching “The Originals," a TV vampire series during which an older vampire, Klaus, speaks to a younger one, Marcel, which he had created about 250 years earlier.
Klaus is very open about the way he felt about Marcel, saying that he had been proud of him, seeing himself in the young man, but then, he started being afraid that Marcel would become his better. That was the point where the relationship between mentor and student, father and son in a sense became unhealthy because of the mentor’s or parent’s fear of not only losing his student or child but even being belittled by him.
This in turn, however, then resulted in Marcel turning against the man he had hitherto seen as a father, rescuer and mentor because he felt that Klaus’ driving force was no longer love, but fear and resulting from this, Klaus was trying to keep Marcel down. And not only humans, all creatures, even vampires, want to be free.
In this way, a fictional drama on TV imparts a fundamental truth. A relationship that is not sustained by love (which means freedom, see my earlier blog “What Is Love?”) is out of balance and when things are out of balance, challenges arise and arguments, strife and distrust are the consequences. The parties involved are afraid to lose their freedom and therefore start fighting. Each thinks the other owes them something and they have sacrificed more in and for the relationship than the other. And when the party fearing to be bettered starts to belittle the other and tries to hold that other person down by force, that other person will rise and fight for his or her freedom of expression, development and expansion.
In the conversation on that bridge in the sunset, Marcel tells Klaus that whatever he had owed him, he had paid a long time ago and if anyone owed anything, it was Klaus who owed him, Marcel. If Klaus had not feared that Marcel could have become his better, but had lovingly supported him in his development, there would never have been such an argument, such anger and struggle in the relationship between the two.
Although this is a fictional story with fictional characters, the scene deals with a profoundly human subject and shows the truth of this. Fear perpetuates negative results and when the person fearing experiences the results of his fear, he then feels justified in having this feeling of fear and distrust in the first place, most often not realizing that he has brought it unto himself.
“Think positive!” does not help here as long as we try to force ourselves to artificial optimism we do not feel deep down on the most subconscious of all levels. We may feel happy and trusting on the surface for a short while, but our underlying programming and the energy we are running on is still another, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. And that is the deciding factor, the root energy at play, not the temporary feeling that is designed to gloss over the cracks.
Where There Is No Support,
You Cut Cords.
When you don’t support a friend’s dream, a child’s aspirations or a colleague’s good work out of jealousy, fear of loss, or feeling somehow belittled by it, know that the other person might resent you for it one day and not support you in turn. Loyalty is a very strong decision, but if someone rises not only without you but despite you, they have no reason to extend this kindness, loyalty and devotion to you in turn which they might otherwise have done. Where there is no support, you cut cords.
Look at successful people and the friends they have had from the time they were still poor, broke and desperate. These friends supported each other – and they grew together. When one rose, the others were never far behind and this made them strong. That is also what Manny the mammoth tells Diego the sabre-tooth tiger, when after he rescues Diego and saves his life and Diego says he needn’t have done that, “That’s what you do in a herd.”
I am not pleading the case of communism here, where everyone is made to fit into the same mould, made to be exchangeable, where a single life has no value, a single person’s dream is of no consequence. I am speaking of relationships that make EVERY person’s dreams, aspirations and endeavours to achieve those important, valuable and worthy of the support of all members in that group.
So next time, you feel jealous or insecure when someone close to you has a dream, an achievement or an aspiration, a desire, think twice before you try to belittle this dream or put the other person down. Instead, work through your own fear and if you can’t, at least, get out of the way, rather than standing in their path. But the best thing is to channel all that love you have for that person and walk that walk with her. Support, encourage, cheer on. If the other is a real friend or fair person in another capacity, like family member or colleague, etc, he or she will extend this support to you in turn. If they don’t, there is still enough time to withdraw. Remember the balance. But when all sides are inspired to lend each other mutual support, oh my God, the beauty of the things that will happen to all individuals in this team is going to be breath-taking…