by Theodore Dalrymple (January 2016)
Recently I have been told by two people whom I had not seen for a long time but who knew me when I was much younger that I now strongly resemble my father, not only physically but in my gestures and my expressions, my tone of voice and so forth. I was, of course, completely unaware of this. Though I held my tongue, my resemblance to my father did not altogether please me, for more than one reason. more>>>
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6 Responses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFsc_KUrT1A
Dr. Daniels seems to be increasingly feeling his age, lately, and while he laments his own subjectivity he ought not to be so hard on himself. After all, if you write about your own failings you are not ignoring them. One of his great accomplishments has been to show the humor in seemingly tragic settings, such as prison and hospitals. That his writing has caused many of us to think about the world and see it new ways is a gift that makes the world a better place, for wisdom tempered with humor is man at his best.
Has TD ever thought of his father as a product of evolution? Same question for mother.
a wonderful, honest, clear-headed article!
I also greatly enjoyed this article. One correction:
“He honed in on faults or deficiencies, often imaginary, more accurately than any drone so far developed.”
The verb here should be ‘home’, not ‘hone’, as in the phrasal verb ‘to home in on’, ie. to move accurately toward a target. It always gets confused with ‘hone’, to sharpen.
Andy
As we share the exact birth date, it is with some relief that I read these musings, written by a man whose work I only discovered today, (how is this the case). But what I see is that the author succeeded in individuation, and is utterly distinct from his father. The question is: how? Life experiences, study, et al, don’t easily erase parental dogma.