The Human Bond : Prologue

by Dayran

My father brought us up to think that there is a bond between all men that defines our relations in creation. He was insistent about it. An infraction of the rules would have brought down my father's wrath on all of us.

 

I grew up adhering closely to its principles … no matter whether the going was easy or hard … it was the golden rule from which a man never wavered. But I wondered about it … and the thoughts were many ... I wondered for instance whether my actions in adhering to its principles were volitional and whether the daily self regulation I undertook was truly with understanding.

 

In terms of a measure of my devotion to its principles I'll have to say I considered myself average … there were certainly those better devoted and those less. It formed the basis of my own self assurance … as a result I had a tendency to preach a little on occasion with regards to issues of trust, honesty and human compassion … and I could have been precocious about it. It didn't sit too well with everyone.

 

One of my best friends at that time … a fine youth by all accounts … had one day suddenly exploded into a raging storm of protest over what must have appeared  like my self righteous and gratuitous vanity. The fact that it happened in front of our common friends rubbed it in further. He had apologized later saying he didn't know what overcame him. 

 

I would have dismissed the event as one of those … if not for the fact that my father had passed away some years earlier and I was trying hard to hold on to the values he passed on … it was already in tatters and I had come to many questions about my own sincerity on the issues. The ominous response of my friend suddenly loomed very large in the summum bonum of my perceptions and values. It changed the way I looked at myself thereafter.

 

In retrospect I figure the only serious disagreement I had with my father's beliefs was the fact that it was a male oriented philosophy. There were many suggestions about the way it was chauvinistic and implied a discrimination as regards women … besides it borrowed on much that was dilapidated in the Asian experience of past glories. To seek a way around it a person had to stop being defensive … a man experiences much in the way of both genders in his personality.

 

The male mind is founded on reason and in contact with his creative energies a man can, with some time and learning, create a model of life's optimization of values, joys and survival possibilities … thereafter he may gauge his own role in it. It satisfies all the big questions about a person's integrity … in the place and time of his reckoning. And yes … its undertaken on the basis of universal suffrage and the strange coincidence of views that my father referred to as the human bond of understanding.

 

It restored my faith and my childhood memories have returned to me in their pristine innocence of the promises of life. My self regulation is slightly better … knowing in some cases that its common sense without having to weigh heavily on faith … and I've stopped preaching … I think ...