The Curse of the First Born

I am the one time forgot - the oldest - the ignored -
I am the first born.

How many first children, especially of large families, feel abandoned by their mothers and/or fathers? Some children really are abandoned as their parents lead lives warped by addiction, or trapped inside their own vicious and unhealthy cycles. Some parents breed and breed and breed, never satisfied but to continue the destructive trend toward endless creation.

In the end who suffers? Children suffer. Well, the parents do too but more or less they do so without awareness. The children develop what others will later term "issues" and set up behaviors in the mode of self-preservation that will later take years of therapy to understand let alone break.

The first born stands as gatekeeper, forging the way for the little ones who trail behind. The first born becomes more than a survivor, becomes an innovator. Creating from nothing a life of substance, or at least a life of something. The first born is the first to try, the first to fail, the first to succeed - the experimental rodent.

First borns become self-sustaining and move beyond their original families to seek and find others like them who need and want to be loved unconditionally, nurtured, cared for deeply. They look for the answers to life's big questions. Why are we here? What does it all mean?

They seek and find Spirit, the God of the mystics or abandon religion and all ties to ideology and doctrine, accepting no substitutes or frauds. They are inherently disbelievers - but will act bravely when the time calls for faith. They follow no code or book of rules - unless they themselves have written the book.