Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said that children are driven unconsciously to compensate for what their parents failed to experience. This is why pastors’ kids are often hornballs.
To be fair, anything one represses can end up exploding in one’s face. But in principle, I agree.
What did my father fail to experience? In my opinion, while he enjoyed some success, he failed to cement a legacy because he was too focused on gratification.
I have tried to steer clear of this, and yet, I feel the same temptation.
So even though I studied more and devoted myself more to my craft and my values, I worried about not starting from the top because I feared being stuck at the bottom.
And so to avoid this, I did nothing, which definitely kept me at the bottom all because I was too focused on gratification.
As Jung put it, “an irresponsible wastrel of a father has a son with a positively morbid amount of ambition.”
I wouldn’t call my dad an irresponsible wastrel, that’s going too far. But why would a man be an “irresponsible wastrel”?
It’s because the pressure to succeed is believed to be too great. No one is born a wasteman.
A wasteman was once a boy with interests but I believe he learnt to never sacrifice himself for anything; not for a job, not for life-affirming values, and not even for a woman.
What Defines a Wasteman
It’s ironic that Jung called this kind of guy “wastrel” and the Jamaican slang is “wasteman,” the common theme being a waste of space, a waste of energy and a waste of a life.
My definition of a wasteman is unfortunately extremely broad because to be a wasteman is actually extremely easy and extremely common.
Jada Kingdom’s song, “Wasteman” is about a guy who has no money but still wants sex. His worth in this context is derived from being poor. Okay, fair enough.
So if a guy had a net worth of ten million dollars, he isn’t a wasteman, right? Okay, cool. But what if he had ten children and doesn’t care about any of them? He’s not involved in any of their lives and has never paid the school fee for any of them. I think many would say that that man is a wasteman.
For the man who doesn’t care about raising his children, he is the “irresponsible wastrel” that Jung is talking about. He has a responsibility and he denies it.
This is really what a wasteman ultimately is: a man who fails to acknowledge, accept and perform his responsibilities, whether to his loved ones, community, or himself.
I suspect many will disagree with this to focus solely on the financial aspect of a man, but that is because this is what masculinity has been eroded to: men provide money, just as femininity has been stereotyped into being all about being sexy and providing sex.
In a world where everyone is increasingly more concerned about wealth, we have cheapened ourselves.
Also, I hope you noticed that I didn’t even mention that the man with the ten million dollar net worth would also be failing the women he had a relationship with, not just his kids.
As Bob Marley said, “The biggest coward of a man is to awaken the love of a woman without the intention of loving her.”
Say what you will about Marley, but the quote resonates strongly because we’ve seen this too many times. Once again, we see the wasteman failing to acknowledge, accept, and perform his responsibilities to those who need him.
Causes and Solutions
Perhaps the number one reason the wasteman exists is the fear of becoming a wasteman. As a man, there is nothing more demonising than to have your efficacy be called into question.
When a woman raises this weapon, it is either because she seeks to destroy the man or because he is already dead.
We began by saying that children try to compensate for the lives their parents failed to live.
This is a good explanation as to why women (and some men) are crushing it in their jobs. Many saw their mothers struggling financially or being dependent on a man for survival, and they did not want that for themselves.
They put their focus on education or service and were able to enjoy more financial freedom than if they repeated their parent’s mistakes.
But for men trying to avoid being their fathers or who fear never making enough money, it often doesn’t have a happily ever after.
As Jung said, “an irresponsible wastrel of a father has a son with a positively morbid amount of ambition.” So, essentially, what Jung is saying is that the son is overly committed to success in response to his father’s failure to achieve what he could have in his own life.
And this is where we are reminded that having such a strong desire for ambition is what causes many to crumble under the pressure to succeed; a pressure that may have been inspired from others but one they ultimately placed on themselves.
It also causes men who have unique gifts to shelve those talents for the safety and security of financial stability.
For example, the boy who grew up without a father may turn into a man who overdoes his role as a disciplinarian to his own son. His son now has to compensate for his parenting from his overly disciplinarian father but is uncertain on what to do for his own son, so he either does nothing, is too indulgent, or makes the same mistake as his father and becomes overly disciplinarian.
The boy who grew up without financial stability may turn into a man with dreams of fabulous wealth but if that is his guiding light, he loses sight of the staircase in front of him that will take him to the top. If he doesn’t arrive at the top, he does nothing. As a result, he has little to no money.
The boy who was abandoned by his father may turn into a man who simply has no family. You can’t abandon a child if you don’t even have a family. And yet, he still wants a family, so he’s stuck in a catch-22 where he wants something that may expose a side of himself that he is desperate to run away from.
The boy who saw his father sitting on his talent, hiding his light under a bushel, knows that he should take more risks. He may try to branch out but the fraternal fear is still too strong, or he blasts through the fear and becomes successful, but because he neglected other important aspects of life he still ends up woefully poor in those neglected traits, afraid to take the risks necessary to learn something new.
Ultimately, we see that being a wasteman is like almost everything else in life: relative. Therefore, the solutions vary. However, there is something that anyone with this struggle can bear in mind.
There is something that you think you must do in order to feel accomplished in life, but to do it feels overwhelming and terrifying.
Honour what you are feeling, talk to friends, family and mental health professionals about it, write about it. If you shine a light on it, it cannot hide anymore. It can no longer control you from the darkness of the unconscious.
For me, I learnt that I don’t have to be the best. It helped me to be more receptive to opportunities and knowledge that made me even better at the things I love and value. It eliminated several insecurities.
But why couldn’t I do this all along? Because I was too afraid of committing the sins of the father and being a cliche. If this is the mentality that led to the problem behaviour, it is the mentality that we must heal.
Unfortunately, many women (and men) will continue to throw the label of wasteman around, unaware of the psychological damage it creates. But if there is a boy or man you care about, think before you speak.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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