Another Sunday.  This Sunday morning is gray, foggy, cool, and Father’s Day.  I asked myself what it takes to become a father.  From a biological point of view–it takes very little.  Nature takes it’s course,— one sperm finds the egg and resulting from a cascade of cause and effect some months later, a child is born.  That is a spare definition of what we want to mean by the word “father.”  Left out, the other 99.9% of what we mean, has to do with the learning that is necessary if one is to become a father to a child.

If one is lucky to have had a father who learned well about his role as protector, provider, and teacher–then one has a head start.  In any case a would be father has a great deal to learn about the care and cultivation of a diminutive, adult-to-be human being.  Learning never ends; responsibility never ends until death lends a term to the relationship.  Learning is reciprocal, a feed back loop between the child-boy, the child-girl, and the father-parent.

Every human is a special, one of a kind combination of biological heritage from two family strains of DNA.  Additionally they live in a time that is unprecedented; the time of their generation is unlike any that has come before, it’s an unfolding of new  conditions, opportunities, and challenges.  Old maxims, old rules of thumb of a past time will not do, for it is a new day.

A father is an example of improvisational learning to his child.  One must enjoy and learn from the ride.  There is much that compels one’s interest, and many lessons offered as one lives through a day, or reads through a book, or pursues a project.  Often one is stimulated by surprise.  What lesson is offered by this surprise?  Surprises are often unpleasant.  But usually a surprise is a lesson is disguise.  What am I going to do with my one life?!  It is an improvisational journey, and the child learns from the adult how to make a great work, how to “make up” a life that is deeply satisfying.

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I offer for your delight a song by the Rolling Stones.  It is not one of their standards played often on the radio.  When I heard it, the lyric and the melody impressed me as being absolutely true of life.  Life is a great “rush” an experience of being out of control.  That is the normal condition of our lives.  Control is nothing but our own illusion that we impose because the illusion makes us feel better.

The song was played in Havana Cuba for the Stones tour of 2016.  Let no one say that rock-n-roll is passé –no longer changes the world!

As always the words are appended after the youtube video.

Out Of Control

By The Rolling Stones

I was out in the city
I was out in the rain
I was feeling down hearted
I was drinking again
I was standing by the bridges
Where the dark water flows
I was talking to a stranger
About times long ago
I was young
I was foolish
I was angry
I was vain
I was charming
I was lucky
Tell me how have I changed
Now I’m out
Oh out of control
Now I’m out
Oh out of control
Oh help me now
And the girls in the doorway
And the boys in the game
And the drunks and the homeless
They all know me
And the police on the corner
Give a nod and a wave
As they point me
To my final destination
I was young
I was foolish
I was angry
I was vain
I was charming
Feeling lucky
Tell me how have I changed
Now I’m out
Oh out of control
Now I’m out
Oh out of control
Oh help me now
In the hotel I’m excited
By the smile on her face
But I wondered
How was time
Gonna change her
I was young
I was foolish
I was angry
I was vain
I was charming
I was out there
Tell me how have I changed
Now I’m out
Oh out of control
Oh I’m out
Oh out of control

-Rolling Stones Havana Moon behind the scenes