On September 26, 2023, I read a Reuters.com article that was the final push for why I established this internet corner for my writings. There had been an earlier, similar article on BBC, and that was the water for my dormant little seed of writing; the seed which has ultimately been within me for a number of years now.
The 2012 documentary by Sarah Polley titled Stories We Tell planted the seed.
The undoubtedly brilliant Canadian, Sarah Polley, after her Mother’s death, interviewed a number of people who had known her Mother in younger years, but especially, around the time of Sarah’s conception. On one hand, I understood this young woman’s quest to connect with her Mother more as the woman she was, but as the mosaic of her Mother appeared from the figment of others’ recollection, subject to their filters and judgements, I felt deep rage. Here was this young woman, the Daughter of someone who was no longer alive to tell her side and to provide her context and constraints, learning about her Mother from those not necessarily vested in her well-being, nor her Family attachments. I felt intense sadness for this Daughter, her Mother, and anger toward those who didn’t respect the limitations of their memories and assessments. They conversed with this Daughter as if in credible authority to reflect on her Mother’s life. It took me no time at all to connect the dots to my own life, my three children, my Family members, Friends and wronged-ones….I felt suffocated and mortified by having others’ projection become the narrative about me for any of my children! In 2014, viewing this documentary, I had no idea this very scenario was already well underway. In fact, it would take me several more years to piece it together.
Now returning to the BBC and Reuters articles that served as the final catalyst for my writings, I fear they will misrepresent the push they provided. I am hesitant to include them, so I’ll emphasize a few points before I do. After all, it’s the human dynamics they described in which I was interested, not the names, not the specific politics represented within. My attention went to the mechanism, the psychology behind a first-strike, offensive information campaign. It exists in many more realms than just in politics or among corporate sharks. It can exist in families, communities, and among peers in the workplace.
Speaking of the workplace, this, too, had a role in my becoming compelled to write. For the last year, I had been working in a leadership role alongside a highly educated, highly polished individual who had zero capacity to handle professional diversity and being challenged. Our task was to stand up a brand new office and hire fifteen subject-experts in various engineering and technology positions. Rather than learning the tools of leadership and management alongside his engineering PhD, he deployed his “divide and conquer” approach and set out to campaign himself to ultimate popularity in our organization, while discrediting me and the organizational leadership skills I was bringing to the table. As a consequence, we were building a highly dysfunctional office running on individual ego and agendas and failing to deliver on our mission. These articles helped me to understand my Colleague’s tactics.
BBC News – The man who helped Orban and Netanyahu rise to power https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66065550
Lastly, I want to emphasize: no one about whom I write do I deem bad or evil. Instead, they are humans, who often are the hurt, the mistreated, and the maladopted. I genuinely believe each has done the best within the context they lived, the poor decompression skills they learned, the gaslighting they endured, and the narratives they inherited. I give them a lot of grace, as I must do for myself. That’s part of healing. Everything I write is to help myself make sense of my own forty-nine years and to improve my emotional household. I don’t dare think I will bring new understanding to existing situations for others, least of all my Family; that’s simply a bridge too far. Making these thoughts external to me however, I believe, will allow those thoughts to stop recycling in my head, and in that process, I may unencumber my living tissue, my very bodily cells.
I would once again like to express I very deliberately began my writing with my Grandparents, as they set the foundation and context for my Parents and for me. Reading any chapters without beginning with my Grandparents I feel will shortchange the reader of my Family’s full story, their humanity.
One More Perspective 
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