RD3 - Creative Nonfiction - Coming Up Short

Robert Akau
March 31, 2011
RD#3

My upbringing, is exposure of new, unusual pleasant and sometimes upleasant experiences. To a great extent, my parents are the ones I usually look up to to point me in the direction helping me to cope with learning about life. In hindsight I look back nostalgically and reminisce as being happy days. At times I may also look upon those days as the “dog” days of my life.  I remember the horrid times and events which made me cringe at remembering those events. In this part of life my recall includes family members, cousins, neighbors, working peers and friends. These are the other participants in the events I recall as “the good old days”, or the triggers of my bad memories. [THESIS]Eventually, my road to competency unfolds before me, fraught with steps and choices, which if done in an orderly fashion, is rewarding[THESIS].   

My childhood, burdensome and long, is looked upon as the foundation making up my personality formation. These are the years in which my life experiences accumulate. Some memories are more pleasant than others. Some memories are best kept under wraps and forgotten. Most memories serve as guides in reminding me what is life affirming and happy. Play with my neighbors and cousins provided early experiences with socialization. They became my very first and loyal friends. As neighborhoods mature, our contact as playmates lessen until we learn the conventional ways of  neighbors in the neighborhood. Cousins remain and are time markers throughout life. In socialization processes, my parents introduced me to, adults again are given implicit positions of influence and authority. Another source of training and upbringing is established.  Childhood years become our reference sources as we become parents and adults in influencial responsibilities.  

Family, acquaintances, friends, and events,  make up the numerous encounters shaping my personality. In all of my experiences in life, some negative and positive incidents, influences me in understanding or knowing what helps me along productively and what detracts from positive outcomes. My career experiences yield a cumulative field of experiences both positive and constructive as well as negative and taken with a “grain of salt”(credits). Various experiences in the area of employment exposed me to various traits of human behavior, I soon  give credit with my understanding of human nature. In elementary school, my teachers instructed me in what eventually will help us cope with the world.  Neighbors offer a parent-like presence, their children offering unstructured recreation are part of my learning process. Social affiliations such as church, neighborhood and community lend itself to more sources of peer, authoritative, role modelling which affects my personal development.

My work experiences added together with my life experiences external to the world of work and influenced by the financial compensation gained from work, helped to define my identify. I identify myself by the title which goes with the paid position ascribed to me and the level of skill I’ve attained while in attendance to the work responsibilities given to me. The hallmark of "arriving", or attaining a level of competency, is when we are depended upon as contributors to our community.  Those around us, look to us, to deliver or create resources which influence outcomes beneficial to family and community. Eventually, I come to realize that I have responsibiltiy to myself to have a constructive impact upon myself and to an extent upon my family. Secondarily, I have a responsibility to Community. This is an implied responsibility to help influence community safety, security, and benefit.(credited to external sources).  

Now comes the reality. As we grow and mature, our parents gradually become to a lesser extent our source of training and guidance. At its latest, they become old, frail, and soon require our attention soon to give us responsibilities as caretaker. It is at this point at which we stand alone.It is this event, wholly unrecognized as a stage of maturation, we unceremoniously take center stage in this drama that we call life. By this time, our parents have totally exhausted their formerly unending amount of knowledge, admonition, and chastisement and now participate in life as mere spectators. They witness the goings on of the various families as they’ve come to be, and may only show approval of, or disdain for what has transpired before them.  Our sense of community once recognized us as secondary in the world of caretakers of our community. Over time, we are elevated to central contributor to the makeup of our community. At a certain point, we are in center stage. There is no one older in a position of productivity.
Growing to recognize changes taking place around me, initially meets with ambivalence, hostility, adversity and reluctance on my part. I find myself creating "lip service", as a way of bringing myself to realize reality. "lip service", is the term applied in a critical manner to the responses of others to particular challenges presented to me, which results in a repulsive response, or refusal to accept reality. My realization is fed to me by the way my co-workers, supervisors and others in positions of influence respond or react to behaviors I exhibit. At times, reality checks come by others taking stands in responses where I would feel none was necessary. Over time, acceptance tells me that, this response is present and will always be present. The most relevant resource keeping me grounded in reality would be those I am always in contact with at work and in social settings. Always having contact with others in social settings, work, courses of learning, become the new way of exposure to life external to me.
Coming up "below par", is an expression taken from the sport of golf. This is an illustration of shortcoming or deficiency, which is "good" for golf scoring but for this work, carries a negative connotation.  
Everything I learned from my parents and learned during my formative years, initially make me who I am. At my peak productive years, lack of proficiency become my sensitive or sore spot, and must now be accepted as making up who I am. As shown in Scott Russell Sanders work, "Under the Influence", I am easily influenced by those older in both explicit and implicit authority. Over time and realization, hindsight tells me that certain influences in my life perhaps lead me in "mechanical" behavior, not helpful in developing productive ways. I am often concluding that my behaviors in life choices, situations and career choices happen because of ways  learned in upbringing. This is called "knee jerk reflex". Knee jerk reflexes are impulsive ways I respond,  and to which external observers would easily remark, "that was to be expected from you". Aiming to be of benefit to oneself and community is what I look for.
 The process of growing into competence is lengthy. Maturing is rewarding, having  resources at hand and available.     

Sources cited: 
Russell Sanders, "Under the Influence",  Writing True , S.Weir, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, p237-250.