Harold, Maude, My Dad, and Me

My father’s birthday recently passed. To honor his memory, I decided to rewatch the 1971 cult classic Harold and Maude, which he once told me was his favorite film. I remember being taken by surprise at this revelation because I had never seen him watch it before—Jurassic Park, The Terminator, and various other action-packed films, sure, but never something as intellectual or macabre as Harold and Maude. At this point, I was a teenager and was well into my obsession with indie and arthouse films, and I had no idea this could be a mutual love shared with my reserved, unassuming father. This tiny insight into my dad’s inner life quickly led Harold and Maude to also become one of my favorite films. I would watch it and rewatch it, studying it for clues that could reveal some further connection between my dad’s personality and my own.

Although I never questioned my father’s love for me, I also never felt particularly close to him. Among our family, he was famously quiet—though in a family that consisted of mostly outspoken, undiagnosed ADHD-ers, I suppose it wouldn’t have taken much to be designated as “the quiet one.” Since his passing, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on our relationship, and I often find myself wishing I had known him better. I am struck by the thought that I knew my father, but perhaps not in the way many people may feel they know their parents. It may sound odd, but it feels more accurate to say I knew things about my father than to say I knew him—I knew that his true passion was the drums, which he learned to play from his father (another quiet, Midwestern man); I knew he was always going to salt and pepper his food before even tasting it (likely the consequence of being a lifelong smoker, coupled with being accustomed to my mother’s mealtime declaration that “It probably needs salt”); and I knew if he made a particularly mischievous bet early on in a hand of Texas Hold’em that, when heckled for making such a move, he would respond with, “The book says…” (which is something of an inside joke among card players).

As the fourth anniversary of his passing looms, I am sitting with this feeling of knowing things about my father but not really feeling as though I knew him, and I am left wondering—is that enough? What does it mean to really know another person?

Jennifer Lackey has offered one possible answer: “Being known is a distinctively interpersonal phenomenon, as it involves the one who knows and the one who is being known. It is also factive—one cannot know what is false, and so if you are known by another, this involves the person having at least some true beliefs about you” (56).

Whew. I certainly had at least some true beliefs about my father, so I guess that case is closed. But this isn’t really what we mean when we say we know someone, is it? Perhaps meeting this shallow criterion is enough for us to say we know our Bodega Guy, but one would hope they know their own family better than a person whose relationship to you is mostly limited to small talk and you ordering your bacon-egg-and-cheese. No, when we say we know someone else, we more commonly mean it in what Lackey might refer to as “the intimate sense,” which “involves others knowing who you are in a deep and meaningful way and… feeling truly understood or appreciated by another” (57).

As a philosopher and something of a Buddhist, I have a tense relationship with the idea of knowledge in general. As a human and a romantic, however, I find myself wanting to believe that, if there are things we can know in this life, surely people must be counted among them. I know that may be an unpopular proposition (cue solipsistic interruptions here), but certainly at some point in our lives, we have all felt known in this intimate sense proposed by Lackey. Think of the instances in which you might have had a seemingly telepathic conversation with your best friend or partner from across a crowded room, or received the perfect, hyper-specific gift, or had someone check up on you unprompted simply because they felt like something was off. It is in these moments that we feel truly seen—we feel known on a meaningful level.

As I continue reflecting on this phenomenon, however, the romantic in me is quieting down, and the skeptic is getting louder, and I can’t help but wonder—could all of this just boil down to pattern recognition? Do we have true psychic connections with our inner circles or do we simply learn to anticipate and predict each other’s responses or needs through extended exposure and a subconscious cataloging of reactions, facial expressions, and tastes? And if knowing a person’s patterns is all there is to knowing someone, does that cheapen the whole experience or make it less meaningful in some way?

Here is where the romantic in me tells the skeptic to sit back down. Because even if knowing someone else just is knowing their patterns, that doesn’t necessarily make that relationship any less meaningful. There is something truly special about knowing what is going to make someone else laugh, cry, or groan. And although sometimes these connections can feel instantaneous when we encounter a kindred spirit, more often than not, they take time to develop. And that dedication is worth celebrating.

When we truly know someone else, it is almost as though we become an expert in the subject of that person, so to speak. There are marked differences, however, in becoming an expert in an area of study, such as philosophy or mathematics, and becoming an “expert” on a person. Perhaps the most noteworthy difference is that the key volumes of knowledge for the former are publicly available, while knowledge on the latter remains largely privileged. Of course, there are facts about people that are public record, but to become an expert on a person in this context (as opposed to, say, in the context of a historian) entails not only knowing the facts about key events in their lives, but knowing how they felt about those events. This is where Lackey’s notion of knowing others as a “distinctively interpersonal phenomenon” comes in.

As epistemic agents, we are simultaneously keepers of knowledge, seekers of knowledge, and givers of knowledge. When the knowledge we keep concerns our inner worlds (i.e., our thoughts, feelings, and memories), that knowledge is privileged. For two people to know each other intimately, there must be an exchange of privileged knowledge. The exclusivity of this knowledge is part of what makes our close relationships so valuable—this isn’t knowledge just anybody is going to gain; this knowledge is conditional—it requires trust and vulnerability.

In building trust with one another, we are able to share the more delicate details of our lives, including our past traumas, shames, victories, losses, desires, and so on. And when we share these details with others, it provides insight into how and why we came to develop our established patterns of behavior. Those who are getting to know us gain a more nuanced understanding of who we are now, because we have provided them with the details of who we used to be. In doing so, a deeper bond is formed—one in which we are able to see each other more fully. To build these types of relationships, we must not only be generous as givers of knowledge, but also remain curious as seekers of knowledge. We must both offer freely and inquire regularly.

When we fail to do this and we hide ourselves from others, we deprive them of knowing us in the intimate sense. Those who seek to know us are left with only their own devices, their access limited, like that of a historian, to outside observation. The only means they have to know us by come through studying our patterns, seeking out secondhand stories, and listening for slips of the tongue that reveal the things we try to keep hidden. And when others have no choice but to come to know us through these limited means, we do them and ourselves a great disservice, especially when it comes to those we love.

When I think of knowing others in this way, I feel as though I failed my father during his lifetime. As so many children have done, I largely failed to remain curious about my parents—to see them as fully formed human beings who had complex lives before my siblings and I were born. Although this is a mistake I attempted to remedy as I got older, I remain painstakingly aware that there was so much I did not know about my father—in part due to my own shortcomings and in part due to his. Just as much as I failed to inquire regularly, he, too, failed to offer freely. My father, the poker player that he was, kept his cards close to his chest and did not share much of his privileged knowledge with his children. So, although we came to know him through his patterns and his actions, we weren’t able to grasp the bigger picture of his life. We weren’t able to know him in the intimate sense.

At his memorial, as we gave toasts to honor his memory, after my siblings and I had mentioned how quiet my father was, one of his oldest friends gave quite a different toast. She mentioned being taken aback by this version of my father that we were presenting. She didn’t know him as a quiet or reserved person at all. For her, he was a confidant—a late-night drinking buddy—someone she laughed with. He was outgoing. He talked shit and caused mischief. And she loved him for it.

To hear this description of my father roused something in me—an odd mixture of a deep sadness, a touch of resentment, and a spark of curiosity. I was sad that, despite my efforts, I had only ever seen glimpses of these qualities in him. At the time, it felt as though I had missed my chance to truly know my dad. Although I knew he had a wild youth and a mischievous side, I still only knew him as a quiet but caring man. (I now wonder whether this may have been at least somewhat intentional on his end—it is entirely possible that he did not want us to know him as the person his friend described.)

Now that almost four years have passed, I have come to the realization that, although my father is gone and my means are now further limited, I am still getting to know him. As I recently rewatched Harold and Maude for, as my mom would say, “the umpteenth time,” I found myself once again studying the film as I did when a teenager, looking for clues that would help me feel the closeness to my father I’ve always hoped for. And in intently listening to Cat Stevens’s simple but effective lyrics, I felt as though I really heard the soundtrack for the first time, and I somehow found much of the insight I have for years now sought.

With hearing the lyrics to the film’s opening song, “Don’t Be Shy,” my feelings of resentment for my father’s reserved nature came rushing back—why couldn’t he have just opened up to us? However, as the film continued, a funny thing happened—I saw my father reflected in the wonderful oddness of it all.

Harold and Maude is, at its core, a story of rebel hearts bucking societal norms and finding comfort in each other’s oddities. Through watching a small, eccentric, elderly woman and an awkward, moonfaced social outcast sing the opening lines of “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out,” I reached an understanding of my dad that I didn’t have before. I saw him as Harold—a misfit with a dark sense of humor, someone uninterested in shallow connections or outdated conventions. And seeing him this way helped me feel more intimately connected with him, because I, too, am something of a Harold. For all the distance I’ve felt between us, I now see that I carry my father with me in ways I never noticed and, as I am sure he also tried to do, I hope to take what my father has given me, and do just a little more with it. I hope to, as Maude instructed Harold, go and love some more.