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I've seen a passage like this:
"Everyone has a child inside who remembers the bits and pieces from the original family, the painful experiences of childhood, or the verbal evaluations of others. We often think that we have forgotten these memories, but in fact they are deeply hidden in our subconscious, subtly affecting our emotions and choices, finding him and healing her. ”
Everyone is inextricably linked to his or her family of origin, and this connection may affect or even tie his life.
"When You Fly Like a Bird to Your Mountain" tells a story about a native family, the author of the book, Tara Westford, who never went to school until the age of 17, later passed the college entrance exam through self-study, and became a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a doctorate at Cambridge University.
Education changed Tara's destiny and reshaped her outlook on life and values, but it also made the rift between her and her family grow bigger and bigger, and she was seen as a betrayer of her family, and her parents did not understand her, let alone accept her. This made her think about the meaning of education for herself and has been working hard to find reconciliation with her original family.
The book was on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week of release, selling more than one million copies nationwide.
Bill Gates said of it: amazing story, truly inspiring. As I read her extreme childhood stories, I also began to reflect on my own life. "You Fly Like a Bird to Your Mountain" everyone will love. It's even better than you've ever heard of.
Tara was born into a very extreme family, his father ran a scrap yard in Idaho, USA, he was paranoid and fanatical, he was the absolute authority of the family, and his mother was obedient and stoic, and was a herbalist and midwife.
Until the age of 17, Tara and her siblings worked every day in their father's scrap yard.
Outside of work, the family's most important task was to stock up on a lot of food and fuel, such as canned peaches and gasoline, because my father believed that the end of the world would come, and that only they would survive.
The children almost didn't have birth certificates because they were all born at home. When they were sick and were not allowed to go to the hospital, their mothers would tell them, "Medicine is a special poison that will never be excreted from the body."
Even more incredibly, Tara and her older siblings didn't go to school for a day because their father didn't trust the government and all public institutions, and the school was designed to brainwash people, in his words, "It's no different than handing them over to the devil."
Father also made it God's will to experience suffering. Even if man-made factors lead to disasters, he will religiously believe that everything is God's arrangement.
Tara's father did not buy car insurance, drove without seat belts, and did not take any safety measures when operating dangerously at high altitudes. In Tara's upbringing, car accidents, engineering accidents, burns, concussions always occur frequently.....
"We have been living in a state of alertness and constant fear. Dad always put faith before safety. Because he believed he was right, after the first car accident, the second car accident, the garbage bin healing, the fire, the tray falling, he still insisted that he was right. It is we who pay the price. ”
If her father is an inextricable mental force in Tara's life, then her brother Sean is the source of her fear of family.
Sean is extremely controlling and brutally violent. Whenever Tara was at home, he would unexpectedly beat Tara badly, grabbing her by the hair, dragging her on the ground, and even shoving her head into the toilet, even though she hadn't done anything wrong.....
Thankfully, when Tara couldn't find her way in the dark, her brother Taylor was like a beacon of her life.
While the other siblings were playing with each other, Taylor took Tara to hide in his room and listen to music together, which was the happiest time Tara had ever had, and later, when Taylor left home to go to school outside, he told his sister:
"There's a world out there, Tara." "Once Dad stops instilling his opinion in your ear, the world will look different."
What is the outside world like?
In order to break free, Tara began to study on her own, and took the American college entrance exam, and was finally admitted to Brigham Young University, the largest church university in the United States, taking a crucial step to change her destiny.
However, the new life in the ivory tower is not as good as imagined.
She didn't know what textbooks were used for, she thought Europe was a country, she thought the Holocaust only killed five or six people, and she failed the first exam;
She wore wide clothing, as her father had taught her from an early age that "a decent woman can never expose anything above her ankle." "While her roommate is wearing a suspender and drinking music, it makes her unbelievable;
She never washes her hands after going to the toilet, because in her perception, it is hypocritical to be clean.
In short, she was like an outlier, out of place with everything around her.
To make matters worse, because her father refused to help her financially, she had to work like crazy to support her studies in order to pay for her tuition and living expenses. Cleaner, convenience store clerk, she has done it.
At the same time, Tara studied very hard, reading until two or three o'clock every night, and eventually, she went from failing to becoming a full eugenics, from half scholarship to full scholarship, and she finally could not worry about not being able to afford to go to school.
Because of her excellent studies, she won the Gates Scholarship, was sent to Cambridge University for exchange, got a master's degree, and became a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a doctorate at Cambridge University.
From a girl in the mountains who never went to school, to a halo of a ph.D. degree from a prestigious university, Tara's fate seems to have changed completely, as she writes in the book:
"I've been cowardly, broken, self-doubting, something rotten inside me, stinking. Until I escaped the mountains and opened up another world. That is the new world of education for me, the infinite possibilities of my life. ”
During her studies, Tara began to read a lot, and from the vast ocean of knowledge, she began to realize the limitations of her father and the absurdity of the values she had been instilled from childhood, and she began to reflect on the meaning of education for herself and the environment in which her original family grew up:
"Education means gaining different perspectives and understanding different people, experiences and histories. Get an education, but don't let your education rigidize into arrogance. Education should be the expansion of ideas, the deepening of empathy, and the broadening of horizons. It shouldn't make your biases more stubborn. If people are educated, they should become less certain, not more certain. They should listen more, talk less, be passionate about differences, and love ideas that are different from theirs. ” "You can call this self in many terms: transformation, metamorphosis, hypocrisy, betrayal. And I call it: education. ”
Education reshaped a brand new Tara, but it also widened the rift between her and her original family.
Despite her dazzling achievements, Tara, who embraced new ideas and scientific concepts, was seen by her parents as a "traitor to the family" and told of the entire family.
She had tried to persuade her father through her sister and mother to repair the wounds of the past, but then did not receive support.
During her doctoral studies, because of irreconcilable conflicts with her family, for nearly a year, Tara had no intention of learning and self-motivation, and indulged in TV dramas and self-exile every day. Education took her out of the mountains, but she could not soothe the pain caused by her family.
She and her parents did not meet for many years after that. Even though she later returned to her hometown many times and asked to see her mother to come out to meet her, she was still fiercely refused. Because seeing a daughter alone is disrespectful to her husband.
Some people say that Tara's story shows us the power of education, but I think it reveals more about how far family affects a person.
As Tara puts it, she has no intention of shaping an inspirational American dream, that "degrees and certificates" are just "a decent void," and that what she wants to express is things gained and things lost that Addiction brings.
"As an ignorant girl who crawled out of the garbage heap and was allowed to study in such a place, I should be grateful to Zero, but I can't raise my enthusiasm at all." I have begun to think about the price that education has cost me, and I have begun to resent it. ”
Parents are the shapers of our original outlook on life and values, and even though we later accept many new ideas and concepts, throughout our lives, we are all looking for a way home and seeking our parents' approval.
Compared to Tara, we were lucky.
04.
After reading this book, my heart was shocked, and I couldn't believe that in the developed United States, such a ridiculous story could happen. But that's Tara's real life experience.
The Chinese edition of the book, "Flee as a bird to your mountain," is from the Bible, and this phrase has two meanings: one is to flee, and the other is to find a new faith.
Tara escaped from the mountains and her parents, and like a bird to seek education and reinvent herself, it is the best meaning of her life.
It was a path full of thorns, unknowns, and even ended up leading her to the opposite side of the family.
Maybe in the end, Tara didn't become what her family hoped, but she became her own hero.
Therefore, in my opinion, this "When You Fly Like a Bird to Your Mountain" is not a successful inspirational book, but a spiritual book on how to break through the shackles and shackles of the original family, find yourself again, and reinvent yourself.
I believe that everyone who lives seriously does not want to miss it.
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Author: Xiao Wei, multi-platform contracted author, Winner of Qingyun Project, loves to read, loves to write, and loves to travel.