Some twenty odd years ago, when I was still a wee little lad, I lived in an apartment building in the centre of a small industrial town. We would move further to the countryside a few years later, but my earliest memories, from the age of four or five, are from living in this red brick apartment building. Both my parents lived there–not in the same apartment though. They lived opposite each other.
But this isn’t about them nor is it about my childhood. This is about the man who lived two stories above. For now let us call him Peter.
Peter was of a medium build and a very tall man, even with his hunched back he was nearly two meters tall. He must’ve been in his mid-twenties, roughly the same age as I am today. Peter lived with his mother.
As a boy I was scared of Peter, this intimidating hulk of a man. But despite his appearance Peter wasn’t really a man. He was a boy like me–but one who failed to develop mentally in tandem with his body. Sometimes there would come a series of loud thumping noises from the hallway that made the windows shake as Peter was heading out to play and bounced his football on every step down the way.
He was a little slow is what I’m trying to say.
Despite his handicap Peter was, and as far as I know still is, gainfully employed by the municipal government; doing odd jobs and such. For a while he worked as the janitor in one of the local schools. Like myself, the other kids were afraid of him and thus made fun of him.
I don’t know if Peter quite understood his position. Sometimes he looked like he really wanted to just join in the games with the other children but couldn’t. Then again, he was able to handle his responsibilities so maybe I’m patronising him here. A lot of this is conjecture on my part.
Still, I’m sure life hasn’t been easy even for Peter. But in a different era or under a different sociopolitical climate it could have been harder. Incomparably harder. From what I can gather Peter is flourishing because of his environment and is achieving his human potential. That leads me to question the roles of individual agency and responsibility for shaping our lives, and collective shaping of our environment by social and political action to enable individuals to have greater agency.
Which way does the scale tip? I’ve always been more of an individualist, believing that one’s moral development is solely dependent on one’s own actions and attitudes, taken for purely egoistical reasons, and that through rigorous training a person can flourish under any circumstances, because ultimately she is in control of her moral character and has complete agency, and she should be indifferent to external happenstance, since it does not contribute to or take anything away from her moral development.
Under those assumptions Peter would not be flourishing, his stunted development preventing him from having the cognitive tools and maturity that realising such a lifelong moral project would require. He would be doing seemingly okay, but only because he was being propped up, only appearing to stand on his own.
But as I’ve come to realise over the past few years those assumptions, while not entirely without merit, are not sufficient unto themselves for a complete human existence. We cannot and we do not stand on our own.
This pill may be bitter to swallow but I’ll have to give ground. Easier said than done as we humans aren’t those rational machines I wish we were. Emotionally I am kicking and screaming, willing to go to any lengths not to admit that to prosper I must learn to rely on others. In that way I am as much of a child as Peter, somewhat stunted in my development in some areas but for very much different reasons.
But unlike Peter I am not a child. I am cognitively and psychologically a fully developed adult. Malformed and discontented, but an adult.
My assumptions about the world were born from emotional neglect and tempered under extreme pressure to survive. They served me well in a crisis situation, which may or may not be still going on. Boundaries have blurred long ago and I have a hard time making sense of the world. When you are not connected to anyone you begin to lose the cohesion that holds the world and your identity together, which pushes you further into seeking solace in your own head, leaving you even more isolated, and what little of you is left becomes ever more fragmented.
Sitting here in front of the computer I close my eyes and try to recollect those fragments. I am a grown man. I am alone. Just like when I was a boy–except I don’t recognise that boy. These memories, do they belong to me? Somehow I have to come to grips with the reality that I am a man who never was a boy. But then who and what am I? If I did not come from somewhere then is there nowhere for me to go?
I saw Peter shoveling snow the other day when I was returning from a walk. I hadn’t thought about him in a while. An odd side character in an obscure town, getting by just fine living in his small circle. But really, I think he is somewhat inspirational.
I can’t help but wonder, What’s it like being a boy who grew up to be a boy?
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