The Antitheocrat

At age 16 I am a depressed teen wondering what life has in store to make continuing worth the effort. The idea of death is something that comes easily, a vision of hopeful future not so easily.

My father has been disabled in an accident and though I try I still don’t get along with my parents. Like all people my age I would never think to talk to them even if I did. I don’t think they would understand anyway, my life and my 60s born generation are very different from their wartime born generation. How can they possibly understand what I’m going through?

I don’t know why – I think I’m sociable enough – but I am still not well liked though I know I’m an average 16 year old. I have no real friends, I’m more a hanger-oner in all the circles I travel in, or around. I certainly have no close friends, no confidants, in school hours or out, I’m alone. I have not long since ended my first serious relationship with my first sexual partner, under pressure from family and my peers. I have been single since and barely a girl has noticed me. I am not attractive in my own eyes and don’t see it in other peoples eyes. I’m not sporty, I’m not a genius. I don’t like bragging about my sexual exploits or talking about football. I’m extremely tall and equally thin compared with my peers. Being from a lower middle class family I wear the cheap polyester clothing my mother buys at K-Mart and wear it until they pulls tight. A style matched to the equally fashionable hair cuts she gives me. I suspect none of this would be the problem If I had friends, but, I am alone in the world and these things can’t be helping.

I wish I knew what life I had to look forward to as I face the idea of taking the short road to the grave yet again. I wish I had someone I could talk to or at least enjoy the company of to have time away from these thoughts.

30 years on, I’ve reached my mid 40’s. I don’t know how I got here but those teen years don’t seem that far away. My own son is 16 and going through similar things to those I went through. I wish I could assure him life is the better option but I have trouble convincing myself some days. I wish someone could have encouraged me when I was 16, something more than the usual platitudes, so I had something to work from, instead I was instructed in my duties and given little emotional support to get there. I’m the strong backbone my wife and son need but I can’t be there emotionally. I have to hope my strength is seen as caring, as I know it is.

In my teen years there were no councillors offering to mop up our every tear with their book learning and officially sanctioned words of encouragement. Without it, like so many before me, I still managed to survive to adulthood. It wasn’t always easy but we did it. In my teens and later in my twenties I did consider an early death. In my 20’s I considered religion, not seeking a god I most certainly don’t believe in, but seeking to know if anyone else has a better plan – and failing to find one. In my 40’s life is still not perfect but the journey, as I look back on it, has for all it’s low points, has been quite wonderful. My seeking did open my mind to other peoples experiences, beliefs, psychosis and cultures. If advice had been available I am not sure what advice I would have preferred anyway. Any advice from an adult would have had a limited reach. As a boy talking with peers is limited to nonsense and bragging. Any advice I received wouldn’t have had the foresight to show me how my life was to progress or where it may as yet go. How could it? As an adult looking at back, what advice would I – or anyone – offer my 16 year old self? There is no way I could have seen the brilliant second option I took on leaving school would fail me and the many years of difficulty and growing up I had to do away from the safety of home and family before I met my wife.

How can we assure young people that life is what you yourself make it? Life is full of ups and downs and when you are down, staying down is a choice you often make for yourself. Getting up is a difficult option that takes work. The further down you are the harder the fight to get up. The key is to find the pleasure in getting up, a joy that can with time overshadow the down times. How do you explain that life is full of beauty, made up of small beautiful things, small things to treasure and enjoy?

In my teens I would have loved to have known about my life as it is now, perhaps not of the journey but the fact I made it here and am generally happy with life. The problem may be that my teen self would have thought it all impossible, that the vision couldn’t be my own life but another’s. Even seeing the future may not have been enough. The partners good and bad that I have had, the love I have felt and shared, owning my dream car and having to sell it. family, trade and my business are things I, nor anyone else, can not have foreseen. If I could step back and assure myself the journey, the good and the bad, was worth taking, would I do it? If I could, how would I tell 16 year old me that who I am today is everything I was – including him – and that I just need to battle on?

In my mid 40’s I have contemplated death and I am as ready for death now as I was in the past. The difference now is that I am accepting of death, but accepting does not mean wanting, I just don’t fear it. I most certainly hope to live a long time yet but I’ll die when it happens and be no more. I don’t believe in gods or afterlives, religious doctrines mean nothing to me and I have no need of them or the idea of living forever in some form that is not me. Believing in unproven doctrines about possible happenings after death will not stop death coming to us all and it doesn’t seem to give people no more comfort than simple atheistic acceptance. Death is inevitable, something none of us can avoid and acceptance of death is not letting fear of it control your life. How would I explain to me at 16 that life and it’s corresponding mortality is nothing to fear? At 16 mortality hangs heavy on most of us, as we outgrow our youthful belief in immortality. How do you explain to anyone that life is short and that every moment should be enjoyed as best we possibly can?

How do any of us share our lives and the joys we would have missed had we not lived? I wish I knew what to say so I could share this with my son and the world. I wish I could share the joys of my life and soften the load of things I once thought were key to my existence. I wish I could explain that grades at school have a limited and short lived impact on your life, that you can rise above those things. Some of us may race ahead at school and have everything fall apart on them. Life does not end if you don’t get those grades, only giving up and not continuing your learning can be considered personal failure. Life is entirely what you yourself make it and educated rich people who battle for power and wealth seem no happier than I am with my wonderful life and meagre achievements.

How do you explain that life is short enough without wasting it on misery and worry?

After all of these years I don’t claim to know everything and I still don’t have all of the answers. How do I explain these things which seem so simple to me now? How do I be heard over the voices of capitalism and the principles of wealth based success to explain you can live well and be poor? How do I make my voice heard over the councillors, teachers, peers and media? How do I explain that striving for success is fine but accepting a lesser path is not a failure so long as you find happiness?

These things I wish I knew so I could share my ease of mind with my son.

I penned this half a decade ago and it was written for my own purposes. In writing it I finally allowed only one other person to read it, my wife who I’m lucky to have still supporting me. My life has changed much since then, my eldest son is preparing to leave home and my youngest is starting school next year. Still, after 21 years as an at home father I can’t say I’ve ever completely felt accepted or comfortable in the parenting world. Feminists, and enough women for it to be significant, have told me my job as husband is to be the wage earner and that I’m lazy for not doing so (I think they under value mothers myself).

About 15 years ago I met a man who was given ever rough wide the government could dish out to a father and this led me to realise how bad men and fathers had it in our legal system. This warned me of how fragile my position as a father was in our legal system. The more I get involved in men’s rights the more men I find in my position or worse mentally and it’s for that reason I’m posting.

I hope this serves me as a reminder for me as my youngest son enters school and leaves my parental control (school and state take over now, they put bullies above victims if the bully is a minority and/or one stop from incarceration, the system totally removing us from our child’s welfare if they see someone else’s child as more “troubled”) , I hope it gives my son’s hope for their own futures, and I hope it serves others who may think they’re alone (as I did).

If you’re a father and see yourself in this in any way, know you’re not alone. If you have or know a father, maybe this can help you know and comprehend the things he may not be able to express. I am my families emotional rock and finance manager (I keep the bills paid and don’t discuss them unless I have to do so) and that takes the emotional burden of everyone else making their lives easier, is your father doing that or more for you? Maybe your male family members are in the same position as I have been, some may be worse. Many men don’t even get to be fathers, they only get to pay the parenting bill. I’m lucky to have my family behind me when the weight gets too much, I’m lucky to have my sons in my life… and yet I still penned this letter.

Boy, men and fathers are important, and human. Men’s rights are human rights.

May your gods remain fictional.

The Antitheocrat.