There was a time in my life that I wanted to be needed. I needed to be needed. It was a justification of my being, my purpose for drawing breath - to be able to resolve the problems of one, of many. I’ve driven myself to be the source of answers - hell, my career is to find choices where there are none - answers within the huge piles of questions we all have. It was all in the goal to make myself crucial. To be the cog that makes the clock work rather than a decorative facing.
I am my father’s son.
Now, I am needed. It isn’t a statement of ego as it would have been when I was younger. I simply am -needed.- Things don’t work without me there to guide them. And as I realize this, I also realize that in my goal to become great, to be that cog, I have made everything around me weaker. Dependant. Is that the nature of sadism truly? To drain and then, in the end, burden myself with a greater weight?
My father did much the same to our household, but did he not, after all, produce me? Did he take until I told him no? Did he mold me into his image by forcing his will down my throat until I rebelled? All stupid questions that would not have an answer even were he alive and sitting beside me, mellowed with age.
I am needed, and it weighs on me. I enjoy it even as I resent the time that those needs require. Are we ever truly free? Would we want to be if we could?
there are different levels of need and power.
my mother has always taught me that to be a great leader is to teach those beneath me to function without me. that is the ultimate goal.
sometimes there is no teaching.
sometimes you are the glue.
even i sometimes just want to run.
Comment by gracie — June 11, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
Freedom is overrated, anyway. At least from my perspective.
elise
Comment by MangledTulip — June 12, 2007 @ 6:37 am
There is a fine line where need is concerned. I too enjoy being needed and I enjoy needing another… but it is difficult when someone truly “needs” you. It holds a lot of weight.
Comment by Mina — June 12, 2007 @ 9:15 am
Being needed is the ninth circle of hell, and I hate feeling trapped under the weight of others’ neediness.
Comment by janeway — June 17, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
[...] What was old, still reigns true. [...]
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