My father is a very independent man. If you have been reading my earlier blogs, he is definitely a very low maintenance person. Before Parkinson’s robbed him of his independence (I sometimes wonder whether it was a higher power’s way of punishing his independence with a sentence of lifelong dependence henceforth) He celebrated the fact that one must not be a burden to the society around us and we should always carry our own water.
He ironed his own clothes, polished his own shoes, packed his own bags, and drove himself wherever he wanted to go. As an adventurer and explorer in the newly independent India, he was off to telecommunications projects, overseeing the building of telephone trunk networks across the country extending thousands of miles. He slept and ate at some of the camps where the workers toiled day and night to finish projects on time. He ordered food from roadside makeshift greasy spoons because of the remoteness of the villages and towns through which the telephone network ran. His life of low maintenance was characterized by a compact footprint that relied on few people for sustenance and a tremendous self-confidence and sense of competence. There was no mechanical appliance he did not open, service manual in hand or not. There was nothing around him that he did not dissect to see how it worked.
My mother provided the rest of his support system. And he doted on her and submitted himself willingly to her care and attention. He always showed tremendous respect to her and demanded that the world around her including his children do the same.
But my father was a lonely man. Not because of lack of enough people who cared for him and would jump to do whatever he asked them to do. But because he never did. He was not out drinking with his friends, only to come home in the wee hours of the morning. He was not asking for favors from friends. His jokes were not ribald and bawdy. His habits were temperate. He did not demand personal services from friends and relatives – though he did believe that cameras were meant for sharing and did not hesitate to borrow friends’ cameras or the office Leica on his trips in India and abroad. His autonomy not only insulated him from the dependence that ties a person to a network of other people but prevented him from enjoying a visceral closeness that comes with such dependence. He remains a person of regard and respect but not someone you go drinking with.
As enterprise architects we need to remember that asking for favors, depending on services, trading favors, however much they create a feeling of dependence are essential ingredients to relationship building. And in my opinion, relationship building does tend to have its ugly moments but in the long run, produces more holistic results.
Towards the last decade of a fruitful life, my father who is in his mid eighties is totally dependent on my mother, his wife of 58 years and his daughter of 54 and a small army of professional caregivers hired for the purpose. And the love that shines on his face and in his eyes as he looks at them clearly proves my point!
He ironed his own clothes, polished his own shoes, packed his own bags, and drove himself wherever he wanted to go. As an adventurer and explorer in the newly independent India, he was off to telecommunications projects, overseeing the building of telephone trunk networks across the country extending thousands of miles. He slept and ate at some of the camps where the workers toiled day and night to finish projects on time. He ordered food from roadside makeshift greasy spoons because of the remoteness of the villages and towns through which the telephone network ran. His life of low maintenance was characterized by a compact footprint that relied on few people for sustenance and a tremendous self-confidence and sense of competence. There was no mechanical appliance he did not open, service manual in hand or not. There was nothing around him that he did not dissect to see how it worked.
My mother provided the rest of his support system. And he doted on her and submitted himself willingly to her care and attention. He always showed tremendous respect to her and demanded that the world around her including his children do the same.
But my father was a lonely man. Not because of lack of enough people who cared for him and would jump to do whatever he asked them to do. But because he never did. He was not out drinking with his friends, only to come home in the wee hours of the morning. He was not asking for favors from friends. His jokes were not ribald and bawdy. His habits were temperate. He did not demand personal services from friends and relatives – though he did believe that cameras were meant for sharing and did not hesitate to borrow friends’ cameras or the office Leica on his trips in India and abroad. His autonomy not only insulated him from the dependence that ties a person to a network of other people but prevented him from enjoying a visceral closeness that comes with such dependence. He remains a person of regard and respect but not someone you go drinking with.
As enterprise architects we need to remember that asking for favors, depending on services, trading favors, however much they create a feeling of dependence are essential ingredients to relationship building. And in my opinion, relationship building does tend to have its ugly moments but in the long run, produces more holistic results.
Towards the last decade of a fruitful life, my father who is in his mid eighties is totally dependent on my mother, his wife of 58 years and his daughter of 54 and a small army of professional caregivers hired for the purpose. And the love that shines on his face and in his eyes as he looks at them clearly proves my point!
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