heheh. I almost sent you a link to that, but new you'd be aware of it. and in the catagory of I wish it were a comic strip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7522016.stm
Even if them old ladies were taking pictures of kids in a public place, who gives a fuck? Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid? It's not like kids are fucking each other in paddling pools.
Seriously, the world's going mad, everyone's turning into a crying bitch with no backbone. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
"Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?"
See, that's an interesting question right there. I know I don't give a flying frick. But it turns out many, many people do. Apparently people who have sick thoughts must be locked up. The question is, are we defending ourselves against others or against ourself? Are we afraid of what "they" are thinking or of what we are thinking?
"Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?" btw, nice double entendre on the noun "twat"
If you get your jollies from kiddies, and it's non-invasive, then what is the problem?
I guess the main fear is what happens when thresholds are crossed?
Take alcohol. First off, you may think "I'll never drink", then you get a taste for it, "I'll never drink to excess". One night you get bladdered and enjoy the freedom "I'll never drink and drive", then one night you're bladdered and you have to run some one home, your impaired judgment leads you to DUI, and nothing happens, so next time you are more ready to do it.
Now, look at an Anne Geddes photo and spank off. Later, hmm, sitting in my window watching the neighbourhood kiddies and ...
The fear is that of the small percent who start on the path, a small percent go to far and eventually someone gets hurt. To prevent this we need to dig up the path, seal the end off with a hurricane fence with razor barbed wire and grow a 12' deep gorse thicket in front of it, and erase the path and its environs from the map.
Indeed. I think I hear the tongue-in-cheek in your voice. As we know from the Prohibition in the thirties and the "war on drugs" and so on, heavy suppression does not work so much as just create many more problems.
I believe the fear was reasonably expressed though.
There are two ways of dealing with a threat, one is to let it beat you to submission, the other is to live life.
Two points on terrorism.
1 - in the movie "Sabotage" by Hitchcock, the terrorism does not impact those plucky Londoners. You may think this just pre-war propaganda.
2 - The V2 bombs were meant to "terrorize" London. In a recent "Nova" documentary "Sputnik Declassified" we are told that the terror threat did not work. People through pluck/bulldog spirit/pigheadedness stuck through it.
The war on drugs, I think was nicely summed up in the last scene of "Traffik", we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers. We have to create a community people want to live in, not escape from.
In an ideal world everyone would lie within the broad accepted norm, no one would fear anyone. We have extremes of cultural idea, and these differences are bringing the fear.
Keeping a lid on a pot causes it to explode, even a safety valve seems wrong, we need an open lidded pot. The pot does need sides though. Question is how tall are the sides, how narrow the pot?
Yes, you don't terrorize by many small hits, you do it with one huge one.
Which was the plan with "operation shock and awe", which they had planned for Baghdad. The fact that this would have been an act of terrorism greater than 9.11 might have penetrated some heads, since it did not happen.
A very informative article about non-invasive "getting your jollies from kiddies": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon And also a very scary one, courtesy of its "legal status in the world" section. Golly, I had no idea Canada could be so... american! (pun intended)
Anon aptly ranted... "Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?" I draw the line at actually doing something TO a kid. Eventually something as slight as ambiguous bothering. But fantasy? Freud proved long ago that 1- everybody has some 2- they're perfectly normal, and in fact very healthy to have 3- they, and everything sexual in general, are intrinsically "pervert". Meaning, in the end, that it's normal to have kinky tendancies inside you. 4- as a consequence, the most terrifying person imaginable is one who claims -or worse, believes- to have no sexual drive or even thoughts. "For some very mysterious reason" :-P these are way too often the same people who will ACT UP on their particularly twisted fantasies. As if the heaviest luggage was the one that runs fastest to catch up with you when you try to ditch it. 5- And yet, having kinky thoughts and actually making them real are as different as can be. "Be careful what you wish for" was never more apt.
I blame that supremely stupid passage in the Gospel [specifically, Matt 5:28], basically saying that having a fantasy about "doing" a woman and actually doing the deed are just as bad. Another calamity of fanatism. But this time, the Holy Book is guilty as sin. It was guilty ever since the Exodus, when lynching and slavery were okay, but coveting someone else's belongings or wife was in the same list as perjury and homicide, and disobeying whatever twisted and tyrannical parents you might have. Ironically, after sternly stating "thou shalt not kill", there follows a lengthy list of wrongs which must be addressed, according to "Yahve's direct Word", by the whole community committing homicide by lapidation...
Terrifyingly effed-up societies are by no means a recent phenomenon... :-(
Today's "thought police", by blurring any distinction between fantasy and action (or readiness to act), seems to me like a blatant plot to ENCOURAGE all criminal behaviors. "You're already fully guilty and deserving prison for potentially thinking about it, so you have nothing left to lose by actually doing it, have you?" Is it me, or is the Kingdom of the Antechrist already upon us, in broad daylight, perverting everything decent in the original message that changed the world?
Eolake assessed to Alex... "Indeed. I think I hear the tongue-in-cheek in your voice." Must have been a clapping tongue in there, then. I can do that too, but never as naturally as the Bushmen people. That particular sound is part of their very little understood language. [Very clear in The gods must be crazy, which is a great movie anuway, so hurry and watch it.]
How interesting that you should mention the "War on Drugs" now. The same day I read a news article about an Australian study on drug use in 17 countries (Western ones, I suppose). It seems that the USA are the country where drug use is most frequent (16.2% of people have already tried cocaine, and 42.4% cannabis), while in the Netherlands, notorious for their very permissive legislations, these figures are respectively 1.9% and 19.8%. No comment. (P.S.: Australia's numbers were 4.3 and 41.9%. I don't know what the law is like there.) When I become a parent, I'm going to educate my children into being responsible, knowing and thinking out the consequences of their actions, and then I'm going to be abominably permissive. This should turn them into perfect citizens.
Alex, Nice parallel and examples with WW2 terrorism. But I disagree entirely when you say "we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers". Sure we can. If you can't impale the fish, remove the water in which it swims. Switch strategies, quit charging at the muleta and hit the matador already.The merchants are unreachable? Kill their market, and watch them starve to death. The best ally of those death-traders is a society that wants to use drugs. Among other reasons, to escape the suffocating "moral" prison it built for itself. BTW, considering the share they're receiving, most drug farmers would be better off running a properly managed fruits and vegetables cooperative. They tell you "we just want to make a living", and they're honest about it. I like your pot image. What new stew brew you?
Eolake, About "Shock and Awe", in Iraq it's not that it did not happen, only that it did not work. The population took the shock and said "Ow!", while the real enemy simply didn't care. "Civilian casualties? Ha! We LOVE civilian casualties! Bring it on, Rummy!" Methinks the real and efficient "shokki-now" was the Patriot Act, with its cohort of morality epileptic seizures. (Spealking of which, have you SEEN Janet Jackson dance? Grand Mal attack, if you ask me.) The United States of America are afraid of Fear itself... Ooh yeah, if I were inclined to superstition, I'd say the Antichrist is staying at the White House today. But I'm not superstitious. I really hope (maybe even expect) that this rule od darkness won't last. Fingers crossed, knocking on wood. (Plywood, actually. Authentic wood came extinct in 1973.)
The war on drugs, I think was nicely summed up in the last scene of "Traffik", we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers. We have to create a community people want to live in, not escape from.
Ah, a poor paraphrase and missed quotations.
The character of the minister (government) in "Traffik" said that about not being able to defeat the trade from source to user.
As the series progressed the quashing of Pakistani growers just opened the supply from Afghanistan. As one dealer was incarcerated another took his place, etc etc.
The farmers, it was shown, would rather grow a weed which needed no care, and collect whatever price than to try to farm harder to grow arable crops which would bring the same or less income per acre. The poppies were grown in mountainous areas. Nobody suggested vineyards though.
Even the users were an unassailable problem. Taking the market away would mean curing addicts. The addicts seemed to be people looking for some comfort in a less than pleasing world. Hence the idea that people need a world to live in, not to escape from.
If you never saw the show I'd recommend it. Made by Channel 4 back in the late 80's. Maybe some of its ideas are a little naive, but it was the most balanced drama I've seen on the subject.
Wood Rubberwood became available in the early 90's then we found it came from sacred trees and it too became taboo. You do still get real wood, but there is a lot of manufactured wood out there now.
When I become a parent, I'm going to educate my children into being responsible, knowing and thinking out the consequences of their actions, and then I'm going to be abominably permissive. This should turn them into perfect citizens.
That makes sense, but of course you won't do it. It won't seem like such a good idea when the time comes, trust me. (And, I've seen what happens when parents are abominably permissive. Whether or not they've educated first, being that permissive to someone whose brain is not yet capable of making rational choices is a bad idea.)
Alex, I know a great Lebanese method to get all-natural wood. 1-You pick a few roots from a local plant called Zallooh. 2-You make an infusion with said roots, and drink it. 3-You wait for your sweetheart to come home and undress. 4-You'll have very strong wood. Zallooh is like Viagra, only it's entirely natural. Been used for ages. (I must confess, I've never tested it myself -never needed to-, but it's very highly spoken of in these parts.)
Anon, As long as the brain is not yet capable of making rational choices, that's the time for Phase One: educating the children. Naturally. :-)
"productive, polite, and reasonably happy"? How AWFUL! I bet they aren't even deeply messed-up. So... weird! So unnatural. (shivers with goosebumps) Ah well, 25% offspring normality isn't so bad. (I'm assuming the 4th one turned into a proper cannibalistic serial killer who cheats on his/her taxes, watches football and votes for the wrong side?)
Of course, when you watch the world around you, it seems that some people die of old age without having ever become rational adults. But there simply comes a time and age when half-properly educated humans need to be left free of their decisions, and set free from "just obeying the parents". Better to leave them be, to let them go, than to have them run away from you, and feeling you've lost them forever. Because you just might be right, and you might never understand "why?"... In ancient societies, this moment of emancipation was when the parents died, and not before. It's still a very common attitude in mediterranean mentality. Like that italian mafioso in some comic I read, opposing his grown-up daughter's love for a non-gangster: "Go to your room! You'll have your say at your majority, when you reach 55, like your mother!"
Legally, this time comes officially at 21, or 18 in some countries "more permissive" than Lebanon. But it is more and more accepted that one doesn't suddenly turn into an adult overnight, just like yogurt doesn't suddenly go all "attack of the killer dairies" when midnight comes on the expiry date. Hence the laws about the age of consent. I'd rather count on the age of REASON, which is earlier, between seven and ten, as a starting point for learning to think by yourself.
There was a time when young girls were fit to marry at 12-14, and young men would at 14-16. Basically, as soon as puberty was reasonably advanced. That's perhaps rushed, given the load of responsibilities coming with marriage, and in our age where life is much longer, and samely the formative years. But I felt suffering so deep you can't imagine without having lived the same, when some decisions were still made in my place by the family elders "who know way better", at bloody 24. Don't pop your eyebrows, over here it's VERY possible. I've forgiven, but I'll never forget. Forgetting would be a grave mistake. What you forget you are doomed to repeat.
My future children will learn what the consequences of their actions are, and if they're dumb enough that they still want to mess up (within reasonable limits!), then that's just fine. This is how one learns that which isn't taught in school, and usually not at home eather: maturity. Counting on yourself, and having TRUST in yourself.
Because, let's face it: parents don't know everything. The more a son or daughter grows up, and things become more complex, the less parents can be sure they know "the one and only right choice". Some parents I know are VERY slowly starting to suspect this, now that they're nearing the end of their weary and unhappy lives. Some others aren't even that fortunate.
Love is protecting at first, and then knowing how and when to let go. I know, I know, that's nearly impossible for a parent. Asking them to fully let go is utopic. But guess what? I'm not asking that. Parents will always be there for their children, that's part of the life-long commitment they make when they bring babies into this world and don't hastily forsake them. But parents themselves have one last lesson to learn: that their babies, so tiny, so cute, so helpless, day after day grow up, and one day they're no more babies at all. Better to learn this when they're still alive, so that families can enjoy togetherness till the last day, instead of needing to live apart for fear of never getting along.
I'm not saying it's simple, or easy. I'm sure I'll badly need to recall my own lessons when the day comes. I'm just saying this is how it should be.
I've seen what comes from over-protective and over-strict upbringings. One of my best friends almost ruined her life because of that. And a cousin of mine is very likely to see his life end before he reaches my current age. Simply because of the consequences of such a childhood. We probably all know some young sadnik shlemiel who got killed from reckless/drunk driving, or from drug overdose, or from Aids, or from a pointless street fight. That's what comes from a society you need to escape from. From fearing the world and the Universe. Besides, from what I've seen, children who became confident from being TRUSTED by sensible parents are just like countries where drugs aren't made such a big deal of: they f***-up far less often. A sensible education makes steady adults.
Love is not a prison. And it should never, ever, even remotely feel like one. Some hugs feel like the embrace of a voracious octopus: suffocating. It doesn't matter much that they are well-meaning. Because they are also selfish, deep down. They consider that the person knows better, and is always right, and has the duty to always decide for the younger one. Love's not selfish. True love is generosity, it's giving without ever hoping for payback. Giving and letting go free. If your love is reciprocated, they'll be back. Freely. Not out of duty, out of desire to see you again. It's the same with couple love. Don't cling. Make yourself desired by loving selflessly, and chances are you'll only ever get dumped by selfish blind fools you're better off without anyway.
Do I sound like I'm getting old? Perhaps. I know. Wisdom is the upside of age. What I was denied before, I now learned by myself. Closing in on freedom one small step at a time.
Sorry to hear that. Doesn't even sound like fun. :-(
And I'm apprehending news of the same in my family in the near future. But apart from locking people up, putting a cop behind every adult, or having Big Brother brainwash everybody, mistakes are the price of freedom. There shall be dire mistakes made, and a heavy price paid, until the End of Times. Undoubtedly.
So only a simplistic mind could ever believe in eternal life of the body after Judgement Day. For one, a planet of immortals would soon be overpopulated, d'uh!
heheh. I almost sent you a link to that, but new you'd be aware of it.
ReplyDeleteand in the catagory of I wish it were a comic strip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7522016.stm
links not copying well in blogger. Lj so much better for that.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/7522016.stm
Even if them old ladies were taking pictures of kids in a public place, who gives a fuck? Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid? It's not like kids are fucking each other in paddling pools.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the world's going mad, everyone's turning into a crying bitch with no backbone. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
This is another front in the war against men.
ReplyDelete"Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?"
ReplyDeleteSee, that's an interesting question right there. I know I don't give a flying frick. But it turns out many, many people do. Apparently people who have sick thoughts must be locked up.
The question is, are we defending ourselves against others or against ourself? Are we afraid of what "they" are thinking or of what we are thinking?
"Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?"
ReplyDeletebtw, nice double entendre on the noun "twat"
If you get your jollies from kiddies, and it's non-invasive, then what is the problem?
I guess the main fear is what happens when thresholds are crossed?
Take alcohol. First off, you may think "I'll never drink", then you get a taste for it, "I'll never drink to excess". One night you get bladdered and enjoy the freedom "I'll never drink and drive", then one night you're bladdered and you have to run some one home, your impaired judgment leads you to DUI, and nothing happens, so next time you are more ready to do it.
Now, look at an Anne Geddes photo and spank off. Later, hmm, sitting in my window watching the neighbourhood kiddies and ...
The fear is that of the small percent who start on the path, a small percent go to far and eventually someone gets hurt. To prevent this we need to dig up the path, seal the end off with a hurricane fence with razor barbed wire and grow a 12' deep gorse thicket in front of it, and erase the path and its environs from the map.
Indeed. I think I hear the tongue-in-cheek in your voice.
ReplyDeleteAs we know from the Prohibition in the thirties and the "war on drugs" and so on, heavy suppression does not work so much as just create many more problems.
The heavy suppression is tongue in cheek.
ReplyDeleteI believe the fear was reasonably expressed though.
There are two ways of dealing with a threat, one is to let it beat you to submission, the other is to live life.
Two points on terrorism.
1 - in the movie "Sabotage" by Hitchcock, the terrorism does not impact those plucky Londoners. You may think this just pre-war propaganda.
2 - The V2 bombs were meant to "terrorize" London. In a recent "Nova" documentary "Sputnik Declassified" we are told that the terror threat did not work. People through pluck/bulldog spirit/pigheadedness stuck through it.
The war on drugs, I think was nicely summed up in the last scene of "Traffik", we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers. We have to create a community people want to live in, not escape from.
In an ideal world everyone would lie within the broad accepted norm, no one would fear anyone. We have extremes of cultural idea, and these differences are bringing the fear.
Keeping a lid on a pot causes it to explode, even a safety valve seems wrong, we need an open lidded pot. The pot does need sides though. Question is how tall are the sides, how narrow the pot?
I've not been sleeping well of late.
Yes, you don't terrorize by many small hits, you do it with one huge one.
ReplyDeleteWhich was the plan with "operation shock and awe", which they had planned for Baghdad. The fact that this would have been an act of terrorism greater than 9.11 might have penetrated some heads, since it did not happen.
A very informative article about non-invasive "getting your jollies from kiddies":
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon
And also a very scary one, courtesy of its "legal status in the world" section. Golly, I had no idea Canada could be so... american! (pun intended)
Anon aptly ranted...
"Who cares if some old twat is beating off to a picture of some kid?"
I draw the line at actually doing something TO a kid. Eventually something as slight as ambiguous bothering. But fantasy? Freud proved long ago that
1- everybody has some
2- they're perfectly normal, and in fact very healthy to have
3- they, and everything sexual in general, are intrinsically "pervert". Meaning, in the end, that it's normal to have kinky tendancies inside you.
4- as a consequence, the most terrifying person imaginable is one who claims -or worse, believes- to have no sexual drive or even thoughts. "For some very mysterious reason" :-P these are way too often the same people who will ACT UP on their particularly twisted fantasies. As if the heaviest luggage was the one that runs fastest to catch up with you when you try to ditch it.
5- And yet, having kinky thoughts and actually making them real are as different as can be. "Be careful what you wish for" was never more apt.
I blame that supremely stupid passage in the Gospel [specifically, Matt 5:28], basically saying that having a fantasy about "doing" a woman and actually doing the deed are just as bad. Another calamity of fanatism. But this time, the Holy Book is guilty as sin. It was guilty ever since the Exodus, when lynching and slavery were okay, but coveting someone else's belongings or wife was in the same list as perjury and homicide, and disobeying whatever twisted and tyrannical parents you might have.
Ironically, after sternly stating "thou shalt not kill", there follows a lengthy list of wrongs which must be addressed, according to "Yahve's direct Word", by the whole community committing homicide by lapidation...
Terrifyingly effed-up societies are by no means a recent phenomenon... :-(
Today's "thought police", by blurring any distinction between fantasy and action (or readiness to act), seems to me like a blatant plot to ENCOURAGE all criminal behaviors. "You're already fully guilty and deserving prison for potentially thinking about it, so you have nothing left to lose by actually doing it, have you?"
Is it me, or is the Kingdom of the Antechrist already upon us, in broad daylight, perverting everything decent in the original message that changed the world?
Eolake assessed to Alex...
"Indeed. I think I hear the tongue-in-cheek in your voice."
Must have been a clapping tongue in there, then.
I can do that too, but never as naturally as the Bushmen people. That particular sound is part of their very little understood language. [Very clear in The gods must be crazy, which is a great movie anuway, so hurry and watch it.]
How interesting that you should mention the "War on Drugs" now. The same day I read a news article about an Australian study on drug use in 17 countries (Western ones, I suppose). It seems that the USA are the country where drug use is most frequent (16.2% of people have already tried cocaine, and 42.4% cannabis), while in the Netherlands, notorious for their very permissive legislations, these figures are respectively 1.9% and 19.8%.
No comment.
(P.S.: Australia's numbers were 4.3 and 41.9%. I don't know what the law is like there.)
When I become a parent, I'm going to educate my children into being responsible, knowing and thinking out the consequences of their actions, and then I'm going to be abominably permissive. This should turn them into perfect citizens.
Alex,
Nice parallel and examples with WW2 terrorism.
But I disagree entirely when you say "we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers". Sure we can. If you can't impale the fish, remove the water in which it swims. Switch strategies, quit charging at the muleta and hit the matador already.The merchants are unreachable? Kill their market, and watch them starve to death. The best ally of those death-traders is a society that wants to use drugs. Among other reasons, to escape the suffocating "moral" prison it built for itself.
BTW, considering the share they're receiving, most drug farmers would be better off running a properly managed fruits and vegetables cooperative. They tell you "we just want to make a living", and they're honest about it.
I like your pot image. What new stew brew you?
Eolake,
About "Shock and Awe", in Iraq it's not that it did not happen, only that it did not work. The population took the shock and said "Ow!", while the real enemy simply didn't care. "Civilian casualties? Ha! We LOVE civilian casualties! Bring it on, Rummy!"
Methinks the real and efficient "shokki-now" was the Patriot Act, with its cohort of morality epileptic seizures. (Spealking of which, have you SEEN Janet Jackson dance? Grand Mal attack, if you ask me.) The United States of America are afraid of Fear itself...
Ooh yeah, if I were inclined to superstition, I'd say the Antichrist is staying at the White House today.
But I'm not superstitious. I really hope (maybe even expect) that this rule od darkness won't last. Fingers crossed, knocking on wood. (Plywood, actually. Authentic wood came extinct in 1973.)
The war on drugs, I think was nicely summed up in the last scene of "Traffik", we cannot defeat the growers, the dealers, the pushers. We have to create a community people want to live in, not escape from.
ReplyDeleteAh, a poor paraphrase and missed quotations.
The character of the minister (government) in "Traffik" said that about not being able to defeat the trade from source to user.
As the series progressed the quashing of Pakistani growers just opened the supply from Afghanistan. As one dealer was incarcerated another took his place, etc etc.
The farmers, it was shown, would rather grow a weed which needed no care, and collect whatever price than to try to farm harder to grow arable crops which would bring the same or less income per acre. The poppies were grown in mountainous areas. Nobody suggested vineyards though.
Even the users were an unassailable problem. Taking the market away would mean curing addicts. The addicts seemed to be people looking for some comfort in a less than pleasing world. Hence the idea that people need a world to live in, not to escape from.
If you never saw the show I'd recommend it. Made by Channel 4 back in the late 80's. Maybe some of its ideas are a little naive, but it was the most balanced drama I've seen on the subject.
Wood
Rubberwood became available in the early 90's then we found it came from sacred trees and it too became taboo. You do still get real wood, but there is a lot of manufactured wood out there now.
When I become a parent, I'm going to educate my children into being responsible, knowing and thinking out the consequences of their actions, and then I'm going to be abominably permissive. This should turn them into perfect citizens.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense, but of course you won't do it. It won't seem like such a good idea when the time comes, trust me. (And, I've seen what happens when parents are abominably permissive. Whether or not they've educated first, being that permissive to someone whose brain is not yet capable of making rational choices is a bad idea.)
My parents were "abominably permissive". Three out of four kids have turned out productive, polite, and reasonably happy.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteI know a great Lebanese method to get all-natural wood. 1-You pick a few roots from a local plant called Zallooh. 2-You make an infusion with said roots, and drink it. 3-You wait for your sweetheart to come home and undress. 4-You'll have very strong wood.
Zallooh is like Viagra, only it's entirely natural. Been used for ages. (I must confess, I've never tested it myself -never needed to-, but it's very highly spoken of in these parts.)
Anon,
As long as the brain is not yet capable of making rational choices, that's the time for Phase One: educating the children. Naturally. :-)
"productive, polite, and reasonably happy"? How AWFUL!
I bet they aren't even deeply messed-up. So... weird! So unnatural. (shivers with goosebumps)
Ah well, 25% offspring normality isn't so bad. (I'm assuming the 4th one turned into a proper cannibalistic serial killer who cheats on his/her taxes, watches football and votes for the wrong side?)
P.S.: about making rational choices.
ReplyDeleteOf course, when you watch the world around you, it seems that some people die of old age without having ever become rational adults. But there simply comes a time and age when half-properly educated humans need to be left free of their decisions, and set free from "just obeying the parents". Better to leave them be, to let them go, than to have them run away from you, and feeling you've lost them forever. Because you just might be right, and you might never understand "why?"...
In ancient societies, this moment of emancipation was when the parents died, and not before. It's still a very common attitude in mediterranean mentality. Like that italian mafioso in some comic I read, opposing his grown-up daughter's love for a non-gangster: "Go to your room! You'll have your say at your majority, when you reach 55, like your mother!"
Legally, this time comes officially at 21, or 18 in some countries "more permissive" than Lebanon. But it is more and more accepted that one doesn't suddenly turn into an adult overnight, just like yogurt doesn't suddenly go all "attack of the killer dairies" when midnight comes on the expiry date. Hence the laws about the age of consent. I'd rather count on the age of REASON, which is earlier, between seven and ten, as a starting point for learning to think by yourself.
There was a time when young girls were fit to marry at 12-14, and young men would at 14-16. Basically, as soon as puberty was reasonably advanced. That's perhaps rushed, given the load of responsibilities coming with marriage, and in our age where life is much longer, and samely the formative years. But I felt suffering so deep you can't imagine without having lived the same, when some decisions were still made in my place by the family elders "who know way better", at bloody 24. Don't pop your eyebrows, over here it's VERY possible. I've forgiven, but I'll never forget. Forgetting would be a grave mistake. What you forget you are doomed to repeat.
My future children will learn what the consequences of their actions are, and if they're dumb enough that they still want to mess up (within reasonable limits!), then that's just fine. This is how one learns that which isn't taught in school, and usually not at home eather: maturity. Counting on yourself, and having TRUST in yourself.
Because, let's face it: parents don't know everything. The more a son or daughter grows up, and things become more complex, the less parents can be sure they know "the one and only right choice". Some parents I know are VERY slowly starting to suspect this, now that they're nearing the end of their weary and unhappy lives. Some others aren't even that fortunate.
Love is protecting at first, and then knowing how and when to let go.
I know, I know, that's nearly impossible for a parent. Asking them to fully let go is utopic. But guess what? I'm not asking that. Parents will always be there for their children, that's part of the life-long commitment they make when they bring babies into this world and don't hastily forsake them. But parents themselves have one last lesson to learn: that their babies, so tiny, so cute, so helpless, day after day grow up, and one day they're no more babies at all. Better to learn this when they're still alive, so that families can enjoy togetherness till the last day, instead of needing to live apart for fear of never getting along.
I'm not saying it's simple, or easy. I'm sure I'll badly need to recall my own lessons when the day comes. I'm just saying this is how it should be.
I've seen what comes from over-protective and over-strict upbringings. One of my best friends almost ruined her life because of that. And a cousin of mine is very likely to see his life end before he reaches my current age. Simply because of the consequences of such a childhood. We probably all know some young sadnik shlemiel who got killed from reckless/drunk driving, or from drug overdose, or from Aids, or from a pointless street fight. That's what comes from a society you need to escape from. From fearing the world and the Universe.
Besides, from what I've seen, children who became confident from being TRUSTED by sensible parents are just like countries where drugs aren't made such a big deal of: they f***-up far less often. A sensible education makes steady adults.
Love is not a prison. And it should never, ever, even remotely feel like one. Some hugs feel like the embrace of a voracious octopus: suffocating. It doesn't matter much that they are well-meaning. Because they are also selfish, deep down. They consider that the person knows better, and is always right, and has the duty to always decide for the younger one.
Love's not selfish. True love is generosity, it's giving without ever hoping for payback. Giving and letting go free. If your love is reciprocated, they'll be back. Freely. Not out of duty, out of desire to see you again.
It's the same with couple love. Don't cling. Make yourself desired by loving selflessly, and chances are you'll only ever get dumped by selfish blind fools you're better off without anyway.
Do I sound like I'm getting old?
Perhaps. I know.
Wisdom is the upside of age. What I was denied before, I now learned by myself. Closing in on freedom one small step at a time.
The fourth one was just a messed-up person who died young.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that. Doesn't even sound like fun. :-(
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm apprehending news of the same in my family in the near future. But apart from locking people up, putting a cop behind every adult, or having Big Brother brainwash everybody, mistakes are the price of freedom.
There shall be dire mistakes made, and a heavy price paid, until the End of Times. Undoubtedly.
So only a simplistic mind could ever believe in eternal life of the body after Judgement Day. For one, a planet of immortals would soon be overpopulated, d'uh!