Who was the real man behind the idealised father?

At the beginning of the quest I mentioned that I find clashes very interesting if one wants to get to know oneself better. The stories have corroborated that idea. Up till now my mother took up the first place in my stories, even when I thought when starting with a particular story that it would be about my father. I wonder why I do not remember many personal facts about my father. Perhaps because we never had a chance to really clash. When he died I was left behind with a question. On account of the idealistic image I had of him the question was unclear and I was only partly aware of it. This time I want to put him at the centre in another attempt to illuminate his picture. Possibly more of the real man will show through now.
 

A man of principle

'Certainly, father was a really positive and enthusiastic person with a keen sense of humour and an independent, critical mind. He had friends of every rank and station and being active in a variety of fields he was held in great respect. He could get very angry if somebody was wronged for he had a strong sense of justice. However, towards the end of his life he seemed very disillusioned and disappointed due to injustices which he experienced.

In the course of 1944 father had undergone two operations and had come home from the hospital with tuberculosis. The months before and around the liberation of Breda in October of that year he had been weak and vulnerable but thereafter he recuperated. It started with short walks and gradually he seemed to regain confidence in the future. Shortly after the liberation in October 1944 of the southern part of the Netherlands, the American Coca Cola company sought contact with lemonade manufacturers in the newly liberated region. They had the intention to build a big bottling plant in the centre of Brabant where they would produce the cola under licence, and they needed a manager. Father, like other colleagues, was invited for interview and seemed to be a serious candidate. He made inquiries and thus it became clear that the recipe with which he would have had to work was a secret and would remain so. He would have to produce something of which he would not know the quality of the composition. Later mother used to tell us that she tasted cola at that time but didn't like it. The parent company would deliver the basics which would be mixed with carbonated water, be bottled in the Dutch plant and be sold from there. He would get financial security for his family but lose his autonomy. Father and mother discussed whether they wanted this and said no on principle: they would not be able to work with a product of which the quality would be unknown to them. The financial security set against this apparently could not seduce them.

About the same time, at the time after the liberation when his health seemed to improve, an important event took place.
Father had been to a meeting of the Association of merchants in beer and mineral water. He was very disappointed, angry and anxious when he came home and sat down in the big chair near the window. I was there when he gave an account of the events at the meeting to mother and told her that the voting procedure worked in the advantage of the few larger factories in such a way that their interests would always be favoured. The strict standards for fruit lemonade and carbonated beverages which had been laid down clashed, in his opinion, with the interests and express wishes of the many predominantly small factories. In the future a lemonade manufacturer would no longer be able to compete with a product of better quality, as he himself was used to doing.
When I try to reconstruct bit by bit the events at that time, I meet with the difficulty that I do not know whether the meeting of the Association had already taken place before he, supported by mother, decided not to continue the discussion with Coca Cola. Of neither event have I been able to trace the exact date. Whether this fact happened before or after the cola-deliberations (I have a hunch it was afterwards), father was fully aware of this being the deathblow for the lemonade factory. Later, in the 'Jam and lemonade decree 1948', the standards were regulated by law. The recipes of our lemonades have never been adapted and shortly after the decree came into force, mother had to stop making lemonade gazeuse on the basis of fruit juices and fibres. Lemonades became soft drinks with 'juicy' names which better fitted the new advertising strategies and forms of trade that after the war with the arrival of the liberators became the new trend.

Father knew that he was no longer able to take care of his family. Gradually his illness grew worse. He became almost isolated from his many bridge, billiards and bowling friends, from the contacts that go with his executive and social functions and from the relations with clients. Except for mother, sister Barbara and doctor Houben he was also literally without physical contacts because of the TB of which he by then knew that he would slowly die. He knew that he would have to give up everything and leave his family in an insecure situation.
After that one time when he came back from that meeting I never saw him disappointed, angry or anxious again. Evidently he accepted his powerlessness and could die peacefully on November the 4th of 1946.
His function was fulfilled; his task accomplished.'
 

The story in review

Belches as first attempts at fathering myself?

'Some time during the first weeks of my years of training at the public library I was asked to fetch the books of Mrs X (the wife of the president of the library board). "Do you mind calling at her house? It's not too far out of your way, is it?". I did go there but afterwards I went to see the head librarian. I told her that I did not want to do this in the future and why I did not want to do that. To my surprise she reacted understandingly to my point of view although I had been rather nervous about expressing it. I was never asked again.
It had been customary that one of the trainees performed this service. It was a privilege of the wife of the president. It was 1953, changes in the Dutch library system were announced and in Breda the time seemed to be ripe for it. The all male board was in more than one respect still very paternalistic at that time. At board meetings the head librarian took care of coffee, wine and snacks and was only called in at moments that the board needed further information. Shortly after the errand-incident the board room could be used for library work, the head librarian was present during the full duration of the board meetings and by the middle of 1956 the library building had got an extension, among other things with a children's department. I was asked to take the training for children's librarian. Which I did.
I have much respect for the way in which the head librarian [ note ] handled the domino effect.

Does this attitude reflect a principle? I feel in this a scent of father's principle of equivalence of people. It is certainly not bad for a start and it still feels good.
But how does it stand with my convictions? Do I have other, really personal values? How does it stand with the 'father' in me, with the person who is master of my life?

There is a point on which I have always tried instinctively to act really out of principle and consequently. But often I fail to stick to that aim. When I catch myself using expressions like "That is a good portrait" or "The weather is beautiful", then I correct myself with an additional "... at least, I think so". I have wondered why I, although there is no general standard of quality or beauty, persistently make this type of mistake and just as persistently correct myself. I suppose it is a general custom with which I avoid the expression "I think it is a good portrait", or "I like this weather". But why do I, and most people around me, avoid these expressions? I think it is because it is not "proper" to give your personal opinion: "There she is again with her view". Naturally you mean it subjectively but hide yourself behind a more concealing, quasi objective and detached form as though you need to defend your subjective opinion while rather the opposite is applicable. I have been alert to this since I was a child but still, even now that I know that subjectivity is unavoidable and essential and that I certainly need not be ashamed of it, I catch myself regularly in the act. I still find "I find" and "my perception of ..." have a constrained sound, but I experience these forms as more open and less pedantic or nagging. On account of this I have tried to get better informed about the world of thought in which I grew up and about the use of is- and be- sentence structure [ note ].

Another word with which I try to be careful is "must". Whenever others use it with me I react extremely negatively. It reminds me of mother's attitude and coercive expressions when I was little.
When I tried to stop smoking for the third time I noticed that it did not work if I tried to force myself with an attitude of "and now you must stop". I went in consultation with myself and tried to find out what held me back, or even stronger, what seduced me to smoke [ note ]. The principle of starting with consultation suits me well; consulting myself strengthens my self-respect, with my succes in consultation with others I am less satisfied.'
 

Review of my own experiences

The elucidating texts are for reasons of clarity placed on separate pages. With a click on the appropriate figure they can be accessed.
 

How do I deal with these things now? Working with bubbles and fruit juice

I am fully aware of my prepossession with respect to drinking cola. I never tested the taste of cola. Once, when I wanted to unfasten a rusted door-lock, I bought a small bottle and established that it is well suited for that purpose. Letting a dash of cola sink home for a while does the trick. After that test I thought it unwise to expose my stomach to it. Another reason why I never even tried it was, probably, that I always did try to remain independent with respect to trends and suggestions like 'everybody does it so why don't you?'. Why should I? This choice seems to be relatively unimportant in my life, to serve mainly as a signal. I see not drinking cola especially as a (small) memorial for father's decision on principle, that it expresses my loyalty to and solidarity with my parents and at the same time looks like an attempt to go my own way, free from the stream.
In retrospect I realise that matters like the use of "is" and "must" are just some of the many consequences of the fundamental principle that is the essence of things for me.
Behind my refusal to deliver the books certainly lay an important principle.

Yet, more than thirty years later a feeling of estrangement and of void had come to the surface resulting in a crisis. It has been found necessary, after all, to look into the principles by which I wanted to act and into my failure to do so. Either my basic standpoint was lacking, or it had not disseminated into every remote corner of my existence in order to be able to apply it in daily life. It has become clear to me now that the basic standpoint indeed was present, but that I still had much to learn both about their consequences and about these, hindering, vulnerabilities.
At present I look at principles as ideals which I have tested and want to realise, from which I draw the consequences, which I in turn remodel into limits and choices. I have discovered that I want to base my thinking and acting, the relation with myself and my reaction to my environment on the principle that all the existing has equal value and therefore equal rights; that I as a human being deserve no more or less respect than the teacup I am using. In retrospect this appears to me as quite familiar (even if it, wryly enough, was absent in the catechism).

The reconstruction of events from long ago has given me a more realistic view of the person behind the idealised father. By being forced to seriously ask myself how I stand in the world I also got a more realistic view of myself and a better insight into the development of my actual philosophy of life and standpoint. I have surprised myself.