This year I'm reading the Dover Thrift Editions translated by Stanley Appelbaum, but most of my quotes are copied and pasted from the Standard Ebook, click here to read it free online.
Foolish Fool
"Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not allowed to cling him."
Why doesn't Siddhartha take his son to the city and live together? It's such a great compromise. Why is Siddhartha being so selfish? TO save his son from making his mistakes? Really?
Siddhartha has connections in the city. He might even have property rights. He can reach and teach his son more in the city. Kids need community and socialization. Siddhartha really drops the ball here.
Is there a better explanation that selfishness? Anyone buying Siddhartha is trying to save his son?
Talking
From chapter 10, "The Son:"
"Neither one talked about what had happened today, neither one mentioned the boy’s name, neither one spoke about him running away, neither one spoke about the wound."
Siddhartha didn't talk about his pain or the causes of his depressions, so he continued to suffer.
Part I
Day 1, 20 Dec- Chapter 1: "The Son of the Brahmin"
Day 2, 21 Dec- Chapter 2: "With the Samanas"
Day 3, 22 Dec- Chapter 3: "Gotama"
Day 4, 23 Dec- Chapter 4: "Awakening"
Part II
Day 5, 24 Dec- Chapter 5: "Kamala"
Day 6, 25 Dec- Chapter 6: "With the Childlike People"
Day 7, 26 Dec- Chapter 7: "Sansara"
Day 8, 27 Dec- Chapter 8: "By the River"
Day 9, 28 Dec- Chapter 9: "The Ferryman"
Day 10, 29 Dec- Chapter 10: "The Son"
Day 11, 30 Dec- Chapter 11: "Om"
Day 12, 31 Dec- Chapter 12: "Govinda"
There is a lot of the feelings of parents in this one chapter. The yearning and extreme emotion that's clearly bad, yet not bad, and works itself out. There's the yearning to help a kid avoid mistakes from a vantage point that the kid cannot share ... and so it's worse than useless, it's damaging and time-wasting to try to protect them from their own decisions and thoughts unfolding. Siddhartha goes the gentle parenting route, and that's my route, and I see the problems with it, yet it is what it is. The young kid needs to go into the "superficial" world and bask in it and fight in it. The young son's path is not the path of the dad's path in this book.
ReplyDeleteA good chapter.
I started writing a script about the son in his adulthood. I wrote a few pages and abandoned it faster than Siddhartha abandoned the pregnant Kamala!
DeleteThat's interesting. I wonder, though, if wouldn't be just following, largely, the same script people have been following ... and Siddhartha recognizes he followed in leaving his own dad: the kids leaving the nest.
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