A friend of mine asked me why her father would spend so much time assisting, encouraging and counseling other people while he hardly did any of this with his own family members. He was rather aloof with his family while he seemed to open up and bloom when a "stranger" came with some problem. This struck my friend and her family as odd.
I think it is like this. Some men are built like a consultant - more capable of providing counsel and good advice rather than love and empathy to anyone including their own family. We usually want empathy and love from people close to us while we want advice and counsel from those that have certain diplomas and social recognition - not from close people.
People like my friend's father are like sages. With difficulty they remain bound within the confines of a family. I say this because the father's best is not given to his near and dear ones. He gets his kick (adrenaline rush) when his brain is tickled and when his advice is sought and that happens mostly with people he is not close to. He takes upon a problem and a) treats it as though it was his own and b) with no ulterior motive.
I think it is like this. Some men are built like a consultant - more capable of providing counsel and good advice rather than love and empathy to anyone including their own family. We usually want empathy and love from people close to us while we want advice and counsel from those that have certain diplomas and social recognition - not from close people.
What happens if a person is like the father who is quite ill at ease showing love and empathy? It involves his inferior function (as in MBTI) and he would not be good at it. We do not perform well in those activities that invoke our inferior function.
People like my friend's father are like sages. With difficulty they remain bound within the confines of a family. I say this because the father's best is not given to his near and dear ones. He gets his kick (adrenaline rush) when his brain is tickled and when his advice is sought and that happens mostly with people he is not close to. He takes upon a problem and a) treats it as though it was his own and b) with no ulterior motive.
My friend's father does love and does care but these are not what make him tick. Take the role of Vijay Salgaoncar in the movie Drishyam. He is the complete opposite of my friend's father. Vijay is a great husband and father as his wife and daughters would vouch for. But would people go to Vijay for good and fair advice?
We prefer a Vijay Salgaoncar in our close relatives and a person like my friend's father in strangers.
Expecting the father to provide deep empathy and love to his family is akin to expecting Vijay to give serious advice and thought to solving some acquaintance's issues. It is likely to be futile. Each of us does some things best. It's unfortunate if our best is aimed at people not close to us. In a way the father comes across to his family as Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, unable to carry on socially but knowing all sorts of trivia. Won't we all prefer a Tom Cruise to his autistic brother?
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