This morning, when I had not yet opened more than one eye, I looked at Facebook and I found this illustration by Alexandre Salles, titled "Son of Demon", in which an injured Batman holds his naked son, who has reminded me of photos of hard, strong parents, full of tattoos, hugging their babies with total tenderness.
And although life is tanning us, even if it hardens our skin, it fills us with wrinkles due to worries, it turns us into a serious gesture and the laughter goes off, there is always something capable of breaking with that shell, soften us and return to our origins: and that something is a baby.
We are not born once ... we are born twice
We are officially born the day we arrive in the world. That day everything begins for us and, although we all have our character and our way of being, with which we are already born, the upbringing of our parents, the experiences with other children, with other adults, in school, then adolescence, work, the inputs of the environment, etc., are shaping our way of being and our way of acting. Many of us end up phagocytosed by a society that has no mercy on anyone: or you are part of it or break with the established. And being part of it can be exasperating if you fail to adapt to its (bad) functioning.
Then it happens that you have a baby, completely misfit to society, that hits an impressive setback to your vital functioning, to your life plan. As I often explain, when my first child was born my priorities and values entered the centrifuge and came out in a different order. It's like being born again. As the days and weeks go by with your child, you realize that many things that seemed important to you are not so important, and that many things that you no longer value, everyday, are actually the ones that make you savor the most lifetime. They live at another rate, they ask you to do it too, and that is a second chance that gives you life to rehook you with the true goal of reaching the world: be free, be happy.
Do you know when a person with a terrible, dying disease explains that we would have to live differently, savoring the small details and giving importance only to the things that really have it? Well, it is the same message that reaches us directly from our babies, who do not know about hurries, schedules, responsibilities or obligations and ask you, as soon as you are born, to make a blur and a new account:
Forget everything, dad. Life is not that complicated. Take off pressure. Don't think so much about the future and think more about the present. I am just a child and I bring you this message that will not last long. When I grow up I will be one more and I will have forgotten this lesson, until I am a father and my son reminds me of it again. So enjoy my childhood, time with me, my way of seeing life and living the joys and sorrows, from the purity of my being, and listen to your inner child, the one you have forgotten and left trapped that still I had a lot to say. Because he is the one with the answers ... in the end everything is easier than it seems. You cannot change the things that happen to you, but you can live them differently.
And this is what has come to mind when I see Batman holding his son in his arms. The contrast of a life full of suffering with a life full of illusion, joy, vitality and new opportunities. A confrontation in which it seems that only the father can help the son, so that he learns how hard the world he reaches is, but that leaves us the lesson that I tell you: Which of the two shines the most? Which brings more light? What more joy? What more life?
