My experience is, that when you really know the reason, really know the reason, the issue dissolves.
Yeah, I'm with fufe on this. I oftentimes had the unfortunate habit of surpressing issues by acting like I uncovered their root cause.
Take it for what it's worth (since I know you only from what you post here, and don't know your father), but it seems to me like you have a tendency to highly regard the opinion of those you perceive to be authority figures/"above you", while acting condescending and sort of asshole-ish to those that you see from the opposite perspective. Could it be that you're repeating a pattern of the relantionship you had with an authority figure that never accepted you?
I haven't thought about it that way. That's actually true for the hangups I had about sports. The symptoms no longer show up. I don't feel the need to lie to myself about that anymore or others. I accepted my shortcomings and realized the other strengths I had from that experience.
I'll put it on my list. I might be able to rekindle the same state of mind that I was in when I talked to him. I would rather be inclined to think of my grandmother or mother when it comes to that Aragorn. My whole family is a grab bag of assholes though.
Oh that's for you to instrospect on, I just thought I'd throw it out to maybe assist you down the line.
I've been reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people (I'll probably make a post once I'm done), and in it the author talks about the importance of what we choose to focus on, and divides that into 2 categories - Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. The Circle of Concern is a big circle of all the things that cause us worry or we feel affect our life in some way, while the Circle of Influence is a smaller circle inside the CoC, which encompasses all the things that we actually have control over.
The point I'm trying to make is I was hung up on my family being selfish, self-absorbed, and downright mean, all the while choosing to hide this behind a facade of masks and blame. It caused me great amounts of pain to never have felt unconditional love from my parents, or to not have anybody in my family (aside from my brother) that I can trust. I cried about it and had depressive states for a long, long time. It even grew to define me as a person for a while. I fantasized about situations where I would pour all of the pain I felt back onto them, or make them see the wrong they've done and beg for my forgiveness.
But it never really helped me. Felt good for a bit to not feel like I was at fault, but I was running around in circles, being pulled by the gravity of helplessness. My only periods of growth were the times where I took responsibility for myself completely and focused on the things that I could control and do. My family and their outlook on the world was not one of them.
So while looking into what situations influenced who you are today can be a good tool and lesson moving forward, it does nothing except generate more pain and dig you an even deeper hole than the one you think you might be in. Somewhere down the line, there has to come a point when you let it all go. Understand and move on.
I mean, think about how unthinkable it would seem to show your father/parents/family unconditional love and acceptance at this point. And that's basically what you're asking of them.