Quest or Consequence
Here’s one kind of classic fairy tale that I bet you remember:
Typically, there is a rare and desirable prize—the king’s daughter plus half the kingdom, for instance. Typically, the requisite task seems deceptively easy—for example, answering a single question for some evil hag, monster, or supernaturally powerful knight. Guess right, and you win fame, fortune, and happiness. Guess wrong, and you lose everything. Typically, a great many give it their best shot, only to fail and die forgotten and ungrieved.
I remember one such tale—of the Evil Hag variety, I think--where the question is, What does every woman want? I love that story. First of all, the question isn’t bad. More people should ask that question. Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good idea to require every potential bridegroom to nail this one before the marriage license can be issued. Knowing the right answer would have to come in pretty handy, don’t you think?
The other thing I like about the story is that every bold fellow who steps up to the challenge is just sure he knows the answer. Oh Sisters out there, how not surprised are you about that? Have you ever known a guy who would admit to not having a clue? Of course, in this story, every poor sucker who trots out his perfect knowledge of what every woman wants—a husband, gold, a castle, many children, a long life, whatever—is rewarded by the witch triumphantly crowing, “Wrong!” and zapped on the spot. Then along comes our hero, who, after observing his hapless competitors for a while, prudently goes off to seek counsel from those wiser than himself. When the old hag puts the question to him, “What does every woman want?,” he is able to answer, “What every woman wants is to be right.” The old hag then claps one clawed hand to her forehead and crumbles to dust. Presumably—although the story somehow never satisfies us on this point—the hero goes on to wed the princess and become the considerate, respectful, and emotionally secure husband she has every right to expect.
But some similar tales of quest and consequence involve truly absurd questions with none of the practical applications of the story above. I remember one where the wicked queen’s question is, What did I say nine years ago? The hero of course, bizarrely, gets the answer right. It’s very hard for that story to make sense, unless you make the evil being a politician.
Oh man, you’re thinking to yourself. This Wertsch woman (that’s Wertsch, not witch) has gotten way off task. How the heck can this review of life-or-death consequences for nearly impossible questions be tied in to the military brat experience? Okay, okay—point taken. But there is a relationship. In fact, I have an impossible question for you:
What does every human being want?
The question, please understand, is not a genderless version of the one above. Nor is it about basic survival--let’s assume the criteria for basic well-being have been met. Now how would you answer that question? Your answer has to ring true for every human being in the world who is of normal intelligence and reasonable sanity. Think about it for a little while, because I’d like to know your thoughts on the subject—and I’m about to trot out my own theory here.
I believe that what every human being wants, no matter gender, ethnicity, age, or economic circumstance, is to be significant.
What each person considers significant, of course, will vary; some would say wealth. Others, power. Still others, good works, or terrorist acts, or wise parenting. While there are obviously many variations, the common denominator would be that every single one of them yields a feeling of personal significance—the person has made his or her mark, and has therefore justified his or her existence.
Now here’s my spin. I speculate that whatever answer most folks would give to that question would be strongly reflective of the culture in which they were raised or which they have subsequently adopted—because it would have something to do with what they understand is valuable. I have no proof of that, but it’s just common sense. That doesn’t mean that people find it easy to figure out what constitutes the best route to a feeling of significance. But in some cultures—some very intense and exacting cultures—the answer to the question of the best way to harvest a feeling of significance is practically second nature.
And that, Brothers and Sisters of the Tribe, is the notion that ties tales of quest and consequence to my eternal theme on these pages, military brat cultural identity.
I believe that because of where and how we were raised--in that foreign country called the U.S. military, so very alien to American civilian society—all of us grow up knowing the answer, and that answer is serving a cause greater than ourselves. This notion is so much a part of us that we have no memory of learning it. It is a kind of deep knowledge that for us has always been there. It sometimes comes as a surprise to find that many civilians don’t seem to know this, or at least not in a way we recognize.
Or am I on the wrong track? Do you have a different answer to the impossible question, What does every human being want? Or even if you agree with my answer of “a feeling of significance,” do you disagree that for military brats universally, the answer is service? Write in. Tell us.
I think what every human being wants is love. The Beatles said it well: "Love is all you need." If you have and feel love, you have both “a feeling of significance” and a desire to be of service. If you love someone, you want to serve them. What mother hasn't given her child the best of what she has, often going without so that her child can thrive? You know when someone loves you when they take your well-being into account over their own. It's a gift to love and be loved. If you have love in your heart, you can serve up what people really need.
As for military brats universally having a strong desire to serve, I don't really feel that way. I have an introvert's love of home and family, which is where I feel I am best able to serve. But I don't have much of a need to go out in the world and serve others except with my best wishes, prayers and the modest donations I can make. To those who have a need to serve, I bless you and thank you. "There's no way you can be but the way you were meant to be." (Lennon/McCartney again).
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I want my life to matter.
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That fairy tale sounds like Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale." The whole Wife of Bath section, especially Alisoun's prologue, is fantastic. The "right answer" according to the WOB, to "what do women desire" is "the maistrey;" the "mastery." But I think if one reads it in context, what she means is, to be respected. The WOB herself demands, and gets, by her wit and eloquence, "space to speke" to effectively and smartly criticize medieval misogyny and patriarchy.
I think people have a deep, well-founded desire to belong, to feel they have a worthy place in the world. The gatherer-hunter societies we evolved in gave that to everyone and these people, as known to anthropology, tend to be happy despite being the very poorest people in the world in material terms. Their problem is that their way of life requires far lower population densities than cultivator peoples acheived and so they are just about totally displaced from the world. But that's how we evolved, and the later, higher-technology societies involve deep stresses they didn't have to deal with.
I think you are right that the military sub-culture does provide a well-defined community. "Belonging" to it is conditional on accepting "the mission" and we brats of course weren't asked first and have that dilemma of either conforming or losing our tie to the "home" we were born into. But actually I think this is another version of the same dilemma imposed on everyone in a patriarchial dominator society, which is what all the cultivator societies transitioned into many thousands of years ago. In a sense everyone is put through a kind of boot camp.
Dominator societies are full of paradoxes; though I think they were founded essentially to militarize all society, in modern capitalist countries perhaps the militaries are less polarized and rootless than most people are!
I think the basic human birthright is that we need a sense of belonging; dominator societies systematically break that down and make it conditional on accepting "the mission" and the social hierarchy that determines it; hence the importance of competition, to stand out as more worthy than others-for only some will be chosen. But the paradox is, that if one goes straight to the military itself, just belonging there is quite an accomplishment in itself.
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Very interesting and thoughtful comment.... I love the Wife of Bath's wish to have "space to speke"--how she would have enjoyed blogging! Same for Virginia Woolf, whose wonderful work, A Room of One's Own, eloquently expressed the same thing.
In all the comments so far, great answers have been given to the question of What does every human being want? Love...Mattering...Belonging. But don't all of these fit under the category of Significance? It's all in how one defines the path to a feeling of significance. Living a life so that it matters to others--yes! Making a home and raising a family--of course! I very much agree with that one on a personal basis, since I abandoned a career in journalism, which I loved, in order to by a stay-at-home mom.
In fact I have a story about that I will share with you. My husband is a professor. On a Saturday morning about 15 years ago, another professor arrived at our house.
While the two of them conferred in the back room, I was washing dishes. Our oldest boy, then around four, came into the kitchen.
Who is that with Daddy?" he asked.
"That's a professor who came to speak with him."
"Oh," he said, and proceeded to work this out aloud. "Somebody came to see Daddy because he's important."
"That's right," I said.
"And you're not important," he said, innocently unaware of the knife he had just planted directly into my heart.
"But," he continued on without a pause, "you're important to a little boy."
And I wept. He'd said it all, in three statements of fact that summed up every former careerist mom's saga of sacrificed persona, wistful nostalgia, the ongoinig armwrestling of inner and outer selves, and the overwhelming redemption of a child's sweet unrehearsed acknowledgment.
How could that not be a story of personal significance? Significance isn't about celebrity or outer world achievement unlesss one wants it to be.
Then there is Belonging, as Matt mentions above. Ah, yes. Those who have read my book know that I made a big deal out of this--I consider the search for belonging to be central to every brat's life. It's an interesting point...and I think I'd like to ponder it in a separate entry. Stay tuned!
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Significance.
I have longed for significance all my life since some unrecollected young age when I dimly realized that there was such a thing. I wanted to be "special", to hog the limelight.
I never questioned why. In high school, this longing was met by performing in school plays, where I enjoyed the undivided attention of a captive audience. Lucky me!
Years later I turned to religion as a way to cope with my marriage and I kept a journal with the secret, unwhispered hope in my soul that someday I might reach Catholic sainthood if the Church ever got hold of its contents! How I chuckle over that one now. I put those 15 notebooks' worth of journal writing out on the curb for the weekly garbage pickup some ten years ago. It rather soothes my soul to imagine them slowing turning to dust in an unknown landfill underneath rusty Campbell's soup cans and molding newspapers.
My strong belief is that the heart and soul of every child hungers for the feeling of belonging that you describe, the knowing of unconditional love and acceptance. Growing up as a BRAT poses a unique set of challenges to children as they mature inside the Fortress.
Inherent to the efficient functioning of a military force is the concept that children are mere adjuncts to the soldier, and that the soldier is merely adjunct to the Mission. And that is only the beginning, the bedrock of the story.
I cannot judge my own significance, but I DO belong. After 40 years of wandering in my own personal desert, I have found an oasis in the dryness. There on white sand, under a bright blazing sun in a faultless blue sky, a huge tent is spread. And under its folds sit tens of thousands of men and women whose names I do not know, but whose history I share, whose story I will understand with my every heartbeat. They are all military brats - just like me.
Individual by individual, our paths all vary, and our stories will all differ. But Mary, you put it so well - we are a tribe. We do belong. We belong to each other and we belong to the tribe of BRAT.
Collectively, we have SUCH a voice.
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It is easy to relate through the social lubricant of pain; people do this at bars and in dirty alleys each day and night. Whether comparing organ size, material sucess, succour or scars, pride plays an integral role here, regardless of the peripheral motive of "commonality". A perpetuation of the sick cycle that is government based and places gain and blood money over family is the only aim, however unintentional, that is met here. It is easy to try to wrap one's arms around another wounded animal or around the world for that matter; it is another thing to reach out to what lays right in front of you. The unconditional love and affection and forgiveness you failed to attain in your childhood that you now still dwell on and process will only overcast the emotive weatherfront of your child/childrens minds, if you have any. John lennon was a great artist who spoke for and helped many; but he, above all, in his first and foremost duties, failed as a substandard father.
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What people want is a feeling of unity /oneness /connectedness /belonging /love /acceptance -- with all others, with all of creation, with power/God/the universe/holiness. We want to know that our connection is whole/lasting/eternal/significant/real.... I think all the explorations these days into Life Purpose are worthy attempts to connect ourselves in lasting and significant/meaningful ways with all that is.... We each make our connections uniquely, of course.... Most milbrats are idealists who identify with values / missions/ goals/ meaning /power higher than theselves. Of course we do, because our parents did, so publicly, so gloriously, so proudly.....
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I want to be understood.
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I hear you. To me this is all about self identity.
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