Future Secured in the Past
The security and warmth offered by a security blanket can send most of your senses to recede into that metaphysical dimension of positive comfort. Imagine the neural activity presented once the sense of touch is stimulated by the simple feel of the blanket. The blanket may offer a comforting scent that brings about certain experiences as well. Gifted enough to recognize precious fabric can also stimulate your sense of sight and seek the security the textile brings instantly. Three senses targeted all at once, and it can quickly become overload!
I can recall the comfort my daughter’s security blanket offered her during times of distress or whenever she felt the need to snuggle up to her favorite blanket. My precious baby was a bit colicky, so this small comfort was priceless! She was at peace knowing that her blanket was with her and could rest easily with her blanket at her side. Without it, anyone would know that she was missing a huge part of her element. The blanket eventually became raggedy fabric, but she treasured every inch of it. She eventually outgrew the full dependency of her security blanket or any other blanket for that matter. Although, a slight bedding snobbery did ensue. Based on her security blanket experience, what I did find very interesting, however, is how her daughters developed this same type of fondness for blankets. The affection developed towards the warm and fuzzy blankets was developed intrinsically and what I believe to be my daughter’s own creation – I did not have that need for a security blanket. It was an organic appreciation for all things that resembled a blanket. Her own change in genetic emotional expression. There was not a developmental bias that my daughter instilled in order that her daughters had the same level of appreciation for the cotton throws. I began to ponder on that emotional trait passed down to her offspring. The fondness developed on its own within them causing them to quickly cling to those emotional dependencies in the form of a security blanket.
This observation prompted me to take quick inventory of those possible inheritable tendencies that seem to contradict with my being, but yet still exist. Could I have acquired an emotional inheritance just as I have acquired genetic information for the color of my eyes and hair? Did the neural activity, that stimulated such a positive (or negative) emotional response, get passed down to define my mental wiring? If so, how do I isolate both the negative and positive emotional reactions, identify it, and then change it to align better with who I believe I am or need to be? What is actually true to my being and what did I inherit as someone else’s emotional trigger? Or does that act itself become who I am by default? That connection to certain musical instruments and songs that bring about a certain pang in the heart and a revival all at once could very well be those emotional responses created multiple generations ago. So many questions to answer. So many behavioral observations to track. In the end, I will appreciate the ancestral virtues and shortcomings as a means of connecting with my ancestors, but learn to recognize who I am as in individual. To own what is truly mine. Then regulate those things I do not admire as much as I should.
