My parents were never really close, they clearly lacked the fundamental knowledge of what 'love' really meant - to them it meant a facade for wealth and preposterous 'prosperity'.
However much I resented this thought process; there was nothing I could do. They were long past the expiry date and even I knew there was no hope for change.
My father was brought up as the heir to a wealthy aristocrat (who died a few years after he was born) - owning hundreds of thousands of acres of land across the whole of West Germany, from the gentle, picturesque hills in southern Bavaria, where I spent most my time as a child rolling down; in solitude that is.
To the emerald evergreen forests of the east - not boasting, but you get the point if it existed he had a piece of it.
He was rich. Too rich. But he quite clearly appeased to the idiom that "money rules the world" something which was and still is undoubtedly true in the hierarchy of society.
My mother however was the complete opposite.
Coming from a household of servants who barely had enough money to eat let alone have free time, they were under the wrath of poverty. She grew up under the long living family tradition of becoming a servant and obeyed what she thought was right however never really finding true enjoyment she still persevered, this is what I, to this day, still don't understand.
Why walk on a thorn ridden path with no end when there is a perfectly clear path right next to it however bumpy it may be. At least with this path you're not being emotionally scarred without an end in sight, I just don't get it.
She could've done so many other things, stuff she enjoyed, stuff she liked or hoped to do as a child, had she no desire for true happiness.
Was what I thought before realising that some just aren't strong enough and just can't break the moral ideologies of family embedded deep within them.
As you can probably infer my mother was the servant of my father's household, but I'm guessing you're also curious about how this peculiar relationship came into fruition.
Well it never did.
There was never a 'real' relationship. My father's natural infatuation was the cause of a relationship born out of the lust for natural beauty - not personality- as he had not once even talked to her other than asking for her hand in marriage for which she coldly, but understandably, rejected.
However he didn't just end it there. Here came the first proof of the fact that money can buy anything however fake the product is.
My father had bribed her parents for her hand in marriage since she didn't accept a pretty black market trade if I do say so myself, but poverty really didn't help the cause. Promising "prosperity", the family gave in with the desire to finally have full stomachs on a day to day basis.
Such a heartless proposal, preying on the misfortunes of others for personal gain.
I hate it even now.
This was sadly normality for the upper class whether it was bribing to hide a secret affair or for one's hand in marriage, it was the immoral reality of the world we lived in.
My mother had to either choose to give up her family due to the nature of her "selfish" desires or mould into the person who they wanted her to be.
To which she chose the second option, it was a "way of life" to accept your family's requests regardless of how much it hurt you and so she did.
'Way of life', such a phrase is thought to be understood by the many, ingrained into your memory from the day you are born to the day you meet your end, how foolish it was to believe such nonsense.
Your immediate thought of a meaning of a phrase like this is the correct way, the structural way, the truthful way of living, this is and was never true; if only she had known this sooner, maybe then things could've been different.
In reality, you have never thought to question the falsehood beaming straight from it; all its doing is just limiting our creativity, our emotional state and development as a person. Sadly, the "way of life" is a misconception.
There is no correct or even right way. There's no step by step guide on how to live your life.
Some take a chance catapulting their future and livelihood beyond the path set for them, others make mistakes getting their feet stuck in the mud and their dreams shattered into pieces, the hopelessness is unbearable consuming your thoughts and piercing your heart – ripping out the vital organ in the process (like blood loss without the blood and tears instead).
Questioning every decision you made in the process, thoughts rampage, like a hurricane across the pacific, through your mind –thoughts like 'If only I had done that differently' or 'If only I hadn't decided to do that instead' although you know the past has long gone and therefore can't be changed.
You still carry on thinking.
You then think to yourself the 'way of life' set out for you is now your desired option, your last option, your only option, at least then your future is set in stone for you.
However, the fragments are still there, all you need to do is find them and piece them together (like a toddler completing a simple jigsaw puzzle), but in this case - there may be missing or irreparable pieces you may need to sacrifice to achieve your dream (in this case her family traditions).
Think of it like an allowance where you can only buy a certain amount of things without it running out so you buy the things you like most, or like sacrificing a pawn in a game of chess so that you knock down the king and win.
If you're not willing to do that you are just wasting your time, it was never your desire to begin with.
Humans live off this desire to learn and improve (that's how they've developed across all these centuries) just listen to your natural instinct if even an ounce of human blood is still left within you and achieve and protect what you hold most dear to your heart and guaranteed anyone would progress somewhere further than my mother ended up, a place decided by the mind of fate.
That being said, people still think with another thought process - a theory - an alternative thought process which could be could be used to oppose my idea, the proverb 'Curiosity killed the cat', one which I've hated since the moment I laid my eyes on it (and no not because I'm allergic to cats) because it encourages the idea of a 'defined way of life' - limiting creativity and development in the process, this was the option she had chosen to pursue.
It consists of the idea that you shouldn't question the things around you; I can see why you would think so.
Some questions are not meant to be answered or never had an answer to begin with, unless you are in need of unprecedented backlash from the world around you; forcing you to lock yourself up in a cage consisting of only your withered mind.
Don't break the mould.
To myself however, I thought the cat was exponentially smarter than one who lives their life under the cascaded rulebook passed down and moulded into its current inferior form from generations of society, conjugated by the idiocy of those who failed to represent the real denotation of such phrases.
Curiosity never killed the cat, the beings that alluded to fake answers to begin with did, which is why I have no respect for the people who follow this thought process, including even my mother herself.
Though sometimes I wonder, do I despise the followers more than the creator himself?
In stark contrast, the phrase 'Rules are mostly made to be broken' opposes the proverb encouraging the cat to pursue answers and find his truth – a belief I largely place myself in line with.
The human race is supposedly a group of 'intelligent beings' yet, most just live the way they are told like a precious bird in a worthless nest, quietly living its life in the dark or a man in an imprisonment of celled walls from the moment they are born, without the knowledge of the world around him and governed by the forces whom put him there to begin with.
Similarly Plato's allegory of the cave talks of this, how would someone not willing to leave the boundaries of their walls ever experience the outside world to the full extent.
Do you think the phrase is fact now? Do you think questioning is that really that detrimental? Do you think one should live their lives under this rock?
Most would answer no.
Like cattle in a farm, some prefer and even like to stay in the farm itself unknowledgeable of what they are being bred and fed for, compare this to the cave mentioned earlier, what if someone is so satisfied with their life to the extent that they would like to stay in there?
Although it might not seem that bad just think to yourself, what if there are consequences to this like that of the farms?
You would never know; so if I was one of them, I would explore outside the walls, at least then I would find the supposed 'truth' and be at a peace of mind regardless of the consequences. I would think to myself 'I finally know,' and rest assured that it was worth the consequences, that's just me however I can understand why someone would stay in the cave if they are that frightened of the consequences.
The vicissitudes of this phrase know no bounds and it is okay to question the 'definition' of such a phrase as regardless of what people say; it isn't fact… The day such a phrase becomes fact will be the end of creativity, the end of intelligence and the end of what we call humanity itself!
At this point, so-called 'humanity' will be a pile of 'living' undead corpses following the instruction manual for the perfect idea of 'life'.
We should be categorised like the rest of the species living on the Earth without the intelligence.
To call this living is offensive to the word itself, this is not living and therefore can't be considered life.
This is surviving; the bare minimum a human should ever think to live by.
At least if you are on the bare minimum, there is always something to look up towards, a bottomless dark pit with pulsing light barely coming across your scope of vision.
But alas she had chosen her thorn-ridden path and that was it, there was no changing the past.
So on August 10th 1968 they got married and not soon after, on May 5th 1970, I was introduced to the world. A child to the marriage of bribery and poverty formed for the lust of the rich and the helplessness of the poor.
"A pitiful birth" was what I often heard growing up as a child; the quiet yet loud whispers around me, from my relatives to the very servants themselves.
Oh how I hated those words.
Whenever this phrase was uttered it was almost as loud as bullets from gunfire making my ears bleed, voice by voice, one bullet at a time, a tear would escape my eyelid. I barely managed to keep my tears from flowing, if even one was let out it would end up with a stream of never-ending tears being released and if I remember correctly my parents told me if I cried it would end up as a river and flood the whole house, which is why I kept them in.
If only I knew this was only so they could avoid breaking the very bonds, which kept the family afloat, with the people who provided my parents with the only real desire of the upper-class.
Status
I was the puppet of a family whose status was in threat and was being controlled by the puppet master with every step I took, a truly pitiful birth…