Pure Colour

by Sheila Heti

It is easy to feel love for one’s child. Nothing on earth is easier. A father often has a special love for a daughter. It is natural to want to shine your interest and pride onto your own child. It is simple to love one’s own creature. But that is a debt the child can never repay—to have been given all that love and care. It feels completely unbalanced. There is a ruthlessness to life. It seems to lack balance—and in its particulars, it does. None of us is able to stand far back enough from life to see the balance that somehow exists. The child is never who the parent wants them to be, and they must not be. Even if a daughter accepts the lessons of her father, she will turn into a creature he didn’t expect. But that is entirely necessary. That is how the world changes, how values and criticisms evolve and change. A child must follow the rules of her own being. A parent can never truly understand what those values or rules are. A child is an alien to the parent, which hurts the parent a little. The child’s whole life can feel like a betrayal. But life is not a betrayal of life.