Week 11: Famous Last Words--Crowfoot

"What is life?  It is the flash of a firefly in the night.  It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.  It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

Another week has come and gone, and I am left feeling somewhat philosophical.  I've been dealing with some family drama (which shall remain unstated, so all of you gossip-mongers should simply stop reading now), and it has set me to thinking--how does family and upbringing influence not only the way we live, but the way in which we view life?

While part of our personality and behavior will always be determined by nature, by the genes and resultant characteristics and behaviors formed throughout millenia of evolutionary history, a large part of who we are is determined by nurture.  The people and culture and circumstances that surround us define us in innumerable and indefinable ways.  The religion with which we are raised provides the base for all of our moral standards, the schools we attend and teachers we have affect the way we view history, literature and culture.  Our families and friendships forever change the way we view and create relationships.  And while we feed back into this system, changing it as it changes us, can we ever be truly separate from the culture and religion that forged us?

For years, I allowed my upbringing and the expectations and perceptions of those surrounding me to define me, to determine how I should look, how I should act, how I should interact, how my life should proceed.  And slowly, throughout recent years, I have been fighting to reclaim my identity, to infuse myself and my own goals into the crude statue that society sculpted.  Yet you can never escape your roots, cannot distance yourself from past relationships without losing a part of yourself--and I don't want that.

So is it possible to separate oneself from all of the expectation and perception around us without forgetting ourselves?  Or is that expectation and perception impossible to escape, is it what shapes us even as we think we leave it behind?  Is it possible to maintain relationships with family and friends even though you disagree with their expectations for yourself and though you fight to break from their mold?  At what point does the drama overwhelm you; at what point does separation from the past become necessary?

Through all of these musings, I cannot help but wonder what I believe life is, what the point of life is.  Because I have always felt that the life best lived is one in which you forge strong, lasting relationships with people around you, one in which you work only to better life, even if it is just in small, seemingly-insignificant ways.  But if that is life, how do I view dysfunctional relationships with close friends and family?  As relationships change, as people change, should I work harder to make those relationships work, or should I accept my losses and break contact, at least to some degree?

Honestly, I have no idea what the answer to any of these questions is, and perhaps it doesn't matter.  I'd like to believe that I can determine my own future, that no relationship is unsalvageable.  But unfortunately, simply because you believe something doesn't make it true.  Perhaps life is as fleeting and ephemeral as Crowfoot's words would imply; and perhaps it can also be as beautiful.  But I am starting to have my doubts about the latter.

Image Information.  Photograph of grass in a sunset.  Wallpaper on website of Kim Kohatsu, PPC Consultant.
Photograph of a bull in winter.  Image on tourist website for Jackson Hole, WY.