world.
Spectators gathered around and stared at the animal, at his milky coat, his pale spots, his huge paws, and then moved on.
But I stayed long after they left, watching the leopard pacing, endlessly pacing, inside his cage.
The thought occurred to me that I owed a debt to those who had gone to so much trouble to display the snow leopard so that
curious people like me might see what he looks like and how he behaves. But as I stood there I felt only the presumption of
my fellowman, who had taken this animal from where he evolved, where he was meant to be, and imprisoned him in a city zoo.
The deplorable consequence is that when I go to the zoo, I don’t see a snow leopard at all. I don’t see his elegance, his
stealth, his subtle strength as he moves for miles across the glacial snows of his mountain home. What I see is a displaced
creature destined to live out his life in an alien world.
This is a condition of life, one we can’t deny no matter how we try to persuade ourselves that the truth is otherwise. There
is no choice, no middle ground, no compromise. Once we possess another creature, we alter forever the inherent nature of that
creature.
I look over the breakers to the place where the horizon falls away. Do I have dominion over the waves
and over the fish of the sea
? I look over my head at the soaring gulls. Do I have dominion over the sky
and over the fowl of the air
? All my life, all my experience tells me I am not in control—that any attempt on my part to exercise control over every living
thing is a sacrilege and doomed to fail.
As children we think we own a crab. As adults we think we own our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters. But the only
life we own, truly own, is our own.
When my children were first learning to walk, I remember picking them up and holding them close because that is what I had
an irresistible impulse to do. Sometimes they wanted the comfort that closeness provides. But usually they quickly twisted
around in my arms and lunged forward, indicating they didn’t want to be held; they wanted to be put back on the ground so
they could go on exploring the world on their own.
Slowly I learned to tell the difference between the hugs that were for them and the hugs that were for me. When I held them
against their will, I wasn’t expressing my affection for them; I was exercising my power over them, under the guise of love.
There are the hugs that smother us and the hugs that liberate us. My job as a father wasn’t to possess them, but to set them
free.
I say that easily, as if I had been a model father who never tried to dictate the direction of his children’s lives. But I
can’t make that claim. I wanted my oldest son to go to college. He balked, became a carpenter, and went on to build beautiful
houses and a life of his own. My youngest daughter was facile with figures, so I urged her to study accounting. She became
a conservation biologist; she spends her summers in a tent in the High Sierra, studying the connection between plants and
birds.
I might argue that I acted out of love when I urged my children to live out my vision of their destiny. But I know now that
I wasn’t acting out of love; I was acting out of a sense of ownership, of dominion, which blinded me. It’s a wise father who
knows his children, and I can say that I didn’t always know mine. If I had seen them clearly, I would have done more to encourage
them to become the men and women they were born to be.
I have four children, and I am proud of them all, of what they have achieved despite my parental tendency to put my priorities
ahead of theirs. I offered my advice; in their innate wisdom, they didn’t heed it. If they had, it would have altered their
nature, and that would have erected a barrier of resentment between us as impassable as the bars of a cage.
In midlife, when I found myself a bachelor again, I was drawn to a woman who had many
Spectators gathered around and stared at the animal, at his milky coat, his pale spots, his huge paws, and then moved on.
But I stayed long after they left, watching the leopard pacing, endlessly pacing, inside his cage.
The thought occurred to me that I owed a debt to those who had gone to so much trouble to display the snow leopard so that
curious people like me might see what he looks like and how he behaves. But as I stood there I felt only the presumption of
my fellowman, who had taken this animal from where he evolved, where he was meant to be, and imprisoned him in a city zoo.
The deplorable consequence is that when I go to the zoo, I don’t see a snow leopard at all. I don’t see his elegance, his
stealth, his subtle strength as he moves for miles across the glacial snows of his mountain home. What I see is a displaced
creature destined to live out his life in an alien world.
This is a condition of life, one we can’t deny no matter how we try to persuade ourselves that the truth is otherwise. There
is no choice, no middle ground, no compromise. Once we possess another creature, we alter forever the inherent nature of that
creature.
I look over the breakers to the place where the horizon falls away. Do I have dominion over the waves
and over the fish of the sea
? I look over my head at the soaring gulls. Do I have dominion over the sky
and over the fowl of the air
? All my life, all my experience tells me I am not in control—that any attempt on my part to exercise control over every living
thing is a sacrilege and doomed to fail.
As children we think we own a crab. As adults we think we own our husbands, our wives, our sons, our daughters. But the only
life we own, truly own, is our own.
When my children were first learning to walk, I remember picking them up and holding them close because that is what I had
an irresistible impulse to do. Sometimes they wanted the comfort that closeness provides. But usually they quickly twisted
around in my arms and lunged forward, indicating they didn’t want to be held; they wanted to be put back on the ground so
they could go on exploring the world on their own.
Slowly I learned to tell the difference between the hugs that were for them and the hugs that were for me. When I held them
against their will, I wasn’t expressing my affection for them; I was exercising my power over them, under the guise of love.
There are the hugs that smother us and the hugs that liberate us. My job as a father wasn’t to possess them, but to set them
free.
I say that easily, as if I had been a model father who never tried to dictate the direction of his children’s lives. But I
can’t make that claim. I wanted my oldest son to go to college. He balked, became a carpenter, and went on to build beautiful
houses and a life of his own. My youngest daughter was facile with figures, so I urged her to study accounting. She became
a conservation biologist; she spends her summers in a tent in the High Sierra, studying the connection between plants and
birds.
I might argue that I acted out of love when I urged my children to live out my vision of their destiny. But I know now that
I wasn’t acting out of love; I was acting out of a sense of ownership, of dominion, which blinded me. It’s a wise father who
knows his children, and I can say that I didn’t always know mine. If I had seen them clearly, I would have done more to encourage
them to become the men and women they were born to be.
I have four children, and I am proud of them all, of what they have achieved despite my parental tendency to put my priorities
ahead of theirs. I offered my advice; in their innate wisdom, they didn’t heed it. If they had, it would have altered their
nature, and that would have erected a barrier of resentment between us as impassable as the bars of a cage.
In midlife, when I found myself a bachelor again, I was drawn to a woman who had many
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