I was not consciously aware of my longings to rescue my father. I was most aware of despising him—for his violence, certainly, but, more than that, for his ineffectiveness. I knew my father was a loser, and for that I held him in utter contempt. I imagined that when I despised my father for his incompetence in the world, I distinguished myself from him. I did not suspect that, in my very disdain, I was never more thoroughly like him. I judged my father in much the same way he judged his father before him. The raw emotions I thought were unique to me were, in fact, absorbed, unsettled energies
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