D. Paul Harrison - Experienced Points (Father’s Day Special) - 6/20/2021
Hello
Hello, and happy father’s day. My dad died a few years ago, and was mostly dead for a decade before that. My sisters always told me “You never really knew him,” and “he used to be different”, but I never knew this person. I just knew the person who was distant, emotionally abusive, and barely existed in my life. His only empathy was transactional, and while this occasionally led to the correct conclusions - he taught me to overtip, for example, because then you’ll get treated well, next time - and that extended to most things in his life.
He taught me how to repress, and how to lie, and how to make a deal. I’ve talked a bit about how I’ve started and stopped reading Abraham Riesman’s book about Stan Lee, True Believer, and the reason for this is that I see too much of my father in it. This person where perception became reality, and empathy and charity were tools in a toolbox. Everything is a zero-sum game to win, and you have to come out on top.
He came from poverty (as far as I can tell, his stories, after some research, mostly turned out to be bullshit), and built himself a reasonable living, working for himself, but always lived outside of his means. The appearance of being rich was always more important than the benefits of it, to him. He would say “I just wanted to make enough money to not have to look at the price on a restaurant menu.”
It’s something I’ve thought about a lot: Perception vs reality, empathy vs transactional empathy. If the result is the same, what does it matter, in the end, of the motivation behind it? If people found him warm, thought he was successful, and he gathered favors like ducks gather moss (or something), is it the same as relationships?
I wonder how much of that is in me, and how I interact with people, and is probably a reason I have trouble interacting with people on more than a surface level. My first instinct is to put on a face, and while the circle of people who see past the face has definitely increased, it still happens. And sometimes I catch myself. And somethings, I get personal very quickly during an acquaintanceship, because I’m trying to get past it faster.
This is why comedy helped me a lot to grow as a person, and is where I met a lot of my best friends. Comedy acquaintanceships, and to some degree even the real friendships, are always both performance and reality. That is kind of the whole thing! There’s an understanding that if you are in a room with comics you can be performing, but after a while you’ve all seen each other at some of your darkest moments. And at least among my peers, that’s understood.
I wish I was better at being there for people, and I wish I was better at asking for help when I need it, but I still always have those lessons from my father in my head, “Perception is reality. Internalize everything. Don’t ask for help, because you may need that help at a worse point, later, so you don’t want to burn that favor.” I especially think about this as I move into freelance and independent work, I have to remember that I have friends, I have a support network, and it isn’t transactional. That said, I will always overtip, I will always do favors, but will not expect anything in exchange. I want to be a better person than my father, while taking the lessons he taught me about being transactional, and using them for good, rather than neutral.
Anyway, that’s it for today. I may have more to say about this over he next couple days and if you read this far, thanks for reading, but was thinking about it while seeing dad stuff online, today. It is hard to find pictures of my dad online, despite a vague political career in Maryland in the 60s and 70s, he mostly managed to avoid the spotlight. That image above is the only one I have, though I’ll get my mom to send me the shoebox of photos she has for me to digitize, at some point.