88 · My Father's Armor

My dad's philosophy is that self-made entrepreneurs necessitate such sheer conviction in themselves during the initial phases of a startup — just to keep it alive — that the residue permeates the man permanently. He says it explicitly: he knows he is prone to being adamant, but strict values let him build barriers, and that thick skin was something he built to protect the inner child from the trauma of his early years. Which is poignant, honestly.

I guess I am just the complete opposite. I'm an evangelical Christian, and as a follower of Christ my conviction is not self-belief but faith in God. I don't believe in myself; I trust and know God — a fundamentally different value. He's agnostic-atheist, which I also was a year ago; my visceral force for takeoff got channelled into faith instead. And where he holds pride in what he pulled off, for me it's gratitude that God did it. Also — I had a great childhood, nurtured with love, where he didn't; I have off-the-charts openness where his world required armor. The neurological networks, the experiences — everything is fundamentally different. To assume we'd share values just because he's my biological father is absurd.

To yell at your dad like that was completely stupid, immature and un-Christlike. There is no excuse. Logically every part of you was right — which is exactly why the behaviour was unacceptable. You know your dad isn't operating the way you are; you know he's a neurotic person who masquerades it with rage. Why would you counter that with rage? You said discussions are supposed to be a dance — so should human relationships with family. When someone is like that, let them be. Everyone is different; biology doesn't change that. Accept the difference while staying in the room.

The thing that bothers me: for my parents, the sole barometer of success seems to be hard work, toil and pain. Almost no mention of happiness, meaning or truth. My dad imposes the ethic that you should work really, really hard — but on what? What do I work on? And why are there people who don't suffer at all, making £10k, even £500k a month, in their teens? He gave me his framework because he loves me — the whole reason he suffered was love, wanting to provide. That love produced a biased value system: pain in life equals progress. He knows it worked for him, so it overflows onto me. And there's guilt in disobeying advice born of love. But no. I reject it. Everybody has a different seed.

I don't need to change my dad. He's happy and content where he is; he'll live by the values that align with him. Let that be. There's no need to tell him he's wrong, no need to introduce a new philosophy — just carve your own path and define your own universe.

Spend weekend afternoons listening to your dad talk. When you go to the UK, you will probably miss hearing the same story you've heard two hundred times. You don't know when he will pass. And it's just a pull and a push, both interplaying — the inheritance you keep, the inheritance you refuse, and the love underneath both.