A recurring visitor to my blog responded to a recent post, Of Mothers, Daughters and a Nation Crying for Help.
She suggests in her comment that women/mothers who kill their children suffer from a terrible form of psychosis, an idea with which I think most of us would agree with.
She adds that when the murder a mother commits involves killing her daughter, the mother experiencing this break with reality seeks to destroy a younger form of herself, i.e. her daughter.
I awoke this morning intrigued by the length at which so many in our society seek to gain attention, never mind the quality of the acts committed to ascertain the limelight or as we so often say, their 15 minutes of fame.
Long gone are the days wherein we sought anonymity and to blend within the background canvassing us—if such a time ever existed in America.
Narcissism holds a place all its own in the collective psyche of American culture. Not that peoples of other societies do not long for celebrity status, exhibit ambition, seek singular success.
And yet it is the way we go about setting our individual selves apart from the pack that so often wreaks the massive amount of havoc we all must endure.
The gift and magic of the original thought of idea. We all seek to be known for this in some way or fashion.
And yet no story presently told has never been delivered in times prior.
Every tale is a retelling of some great myth. But for the theme, only the perspective stands distinct and unique.
And so it is that we have the privilege and right to copyright our work lest others copy our singular design.
For as the adage goes, the highest form of flattery is that of mimicry.
While the Chinese would agree they also appear to know and understand this in a way that manifests quite differently.
One can bestow no greater honor upon an artist concerning her or his creation than when copying it—and in mass quantities—then distributing these copies or fakes as we would term them
Chinese society does not count plagiarism as the crime we consider it. This presents a clear problem for Americans doing business in China.
Holding this in mind while observing the mother-daughter relationship adds a dimension to the response left by the visitor who commented on my recent blog post concerning mothers who kill their children, specifically their daughters.
The post focused not simply on mothers who kill their children, but who also in turn commit suicide after having murder her children.
Clearly stresses, both personal and societal play a huge role in a mother, and/or father’s decision to commit such a crime.
From the perspective of the comment left by the reader of this post—that the mother, in the throes of her psychosis, when killing her daughter, is also “ … seeking to kill or destroy a younger … ,” perhaps prettier and more nascent version of herself—my thoughts slip back to the way in which Chinese culture expresses gratitude towards an artist’s creation that so moves and influences them.
Copying.
Plagiarism.
Could a mother grow angry that the powers that be, the entity that rules over life and living created a better, new and more improved version of her?
The act of procreation, conceiving and giving birth hold aspects of narcissism.
While earning my M.A. in Psychology, a teacher once suggested that life consists of a balancing act between narcissism and altruism.
Commitment to parenting and mothering can be one of the most selfless acts anyone can carry out. And yet in so doing we ideally create a monument to our lives and living, our very existence that goes on beyond our death.
Should achieve success, love our child/children and nurture them into adulthood while maintaining a loving and respectful relationship(s) with our daughters and sons, they, in surviving our death, grant us immortality in that we remain alive in their memories and those of any offspring to whom the give birth and tell about us.
But what of the mothers and/or fathers who choose suicide to end their experience of pain and hurting, and in so doing kill their children before ending their own lives?
Is the ache that has so engulfed them and their thoughts so great that the mother/parent loses sight of their need, our collective human desire to achieve immortality?
And if so, what in our society that teeters ever farther towards the pole of narcissism, seeing ourselves in all that we do, think and breathe, has brought them to the point of destroying the most important aspect of living that can deliver both a reflection of self, evidencing that we once lived and in so doing grant immortality?
I have no answers.
And yet the thought strikes me–much as did the comment left by the reader of my recent blog post–that somewhere in our culture’s need to see itself looking back, we lose sight of what it means to see others, those who stand distinct and different, separate from ourselves.
Have we in similar fashion to Narcissus, obsessed with his image reflected upon the pond’s surface, fallen into the waters of our own illusions and drowned?
And in our demise have we unwittingly taken our children with us?
Perhaps this is the conundrum.
To find a place for one’s self, the most original thought any entity could possess, and yet remain connected, most particularly with those we love, and in whose life and living our chance of immortality rests.
Again, I do not think any parent of sane mind and body who carries such desperate act.
And yet the idea of leaving some aspect of themselves to remain alone in the world following the death of a parent by their own hand rings with an even sinister toll.
Whatever the psychosis that entangles the thoughts and acts of any parent who commits homicide upon her or his children and then murders her or himself, the loss of complete existence and evidence that they lived as bestowed by their children is a chilly reminder that we must somehow, find a way to remain connected—to ourselves and with each other—each serving to bolster ties with the other.