I was born during a war.
It was at a time when all the major wars had come to an end and all affected countries were trying to recover from all the losses the wars brought upon them. My country was no different. We had a substantial amount of loss from World War II but it would interest you to know that the majority of our losses were more mental than material. Another sad fact was that the country had no idea that this was the situation at hand, but a bunch of us knew - we knew because we had access to the truths by virtue of the family name, so all life and business decisions in my family were data-driven (as you modern people would call it). Our war was one of the minds and my family, along with a few others were winning.
In my teenage rebellion years, I decided that I was not going to partake in the family business as I was experiencing a phase of guilt and self judgement. I thought we were all going to hell because the family was making a killing from the knowledge it had of these poor people. I decided to give back in a better way and this led me to study psychology in the university. In retrospect, I do not know what I was expecting to be the end-game when I took the decision, but I knew the problem was the mind and I wanted to help. My rebellious years lasted a bit and I actually had a PhD in Clinical Psychology. At some point, I realized that I wanted to understand my people better. The big wigs of psychology had suggested that there was a case of demographic bias in most hypotheses that had been trending. This inspired me to gain insight from my own environment and led me to 8 years being a shrink.
I loved the time I spent. It was toxic to me as an empathetic person (having to feel every pain before managing to switch back to being a professional and giving the best recommendations was draining) but it was the field I chose and I wasn’t ready to admit to pops that it was a foolish decision just yet. Well, he didn’t live long to say I told you so but I’m sure he flipped me the bird when he heard the chatter about me over there. I would say I did my best as a religious man. I guess I hacked the faith thing and just left everything else. The entire family believed in God but everyone had the freedom to express their beliefs in any way they felt worked for them - provided you were doing good in your life, no one bothered that one of our cousins was cohabiting with one of these voodoo priests for about 4 years. It didn’t stop her from going to work and being one of the baddest women in the financial advisory services sector, so we were at peace with her.
My favorite Bible verse is John 10:35 “Jesus wept”. It just struck me how Jesus was able to empathize with pain to that level even though he had the power to restore his life. I believe this is what really sold me. I was still just a Sunday man but I read my Bible. Proverbs had a frequent customer; for the ulterior motive of trying to be as wise as my father. I am a very simple man with fine taste, and it mostly showed in my dress sense and the cars I have driven. At 16, I got my first car - a 1967 Chevy Impala SS. It was gorgeous and I fail to remember the grand thing I did that made my father give me the money for this baby. I sure do not remember taking a bullet for him or anyone he knows at that time but who was I to reject such generosity? I used that baby through university and let’s just say women love good cars. People claim that I was born in the era of conservative women who didn’t just get into wanton shindigs, but the statistics myself and my peers had could easily say otherwise. We did everything but just did not shout about it, and who would have cared (if they found out) when we were doing so well with our lives?
To be continued...