Life Position

The child is born free, but he soon learns different. During the first two years he is pro- gramed mainly by his mother. This program forms the original skeleton, or anlage, of his script, the 'primal protocol,' at first con- cerned with swallowing or being swallowed, and then, when he gets teeth, with tearing or being torn. It is being a hammer or being an anvil, as Goethe put it, the most primitive versions of being a winner or being a loser, as seen in Greek myths and Primal Rituals, where children are devoured and the limbs of the poet lie scattered on the ground. Even in the nursery, it is often already apparent who is in control, the mother or the baby. This may be reversed sooner or later, but echoes of the original situation can still be heard in times of stress or temper. But very few peo- ple can remember anything from this period, which in many ways is the most important, so it has to be reconstructed with the help of parents, relatives, nursemaids, and pedia- tricians, conjectures made about dreams, and perhaps the family album.