Friday, February 26, 2010

Apologies to Tomorrow for My Yesterdays...

I'm sorry, tomorrow... Today has been about realizing that I made a lot of mistakes yesterday.

Those who came before us that offer us advice really do know stuff... my parents, for instance, offered me, through a series of suggestions, demands, and asswhoopings, a path toward their version of success. They saw themselves as my life-GPS telling me when and which way to turn en route to success... But that's not actually what they were. They were far less state of the art. They were much more like maps illustrating the location of failure, drawn with the natural ink of parental concern to help me avoid peril. Fear mongerors, they were. They would say, "Do you want to end up in jail, son?"

And frankly, their fear mongering brought upon me the feeling of vertigo, as Milan Kundera describes it: Is vertigo the fear of falling? "No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of emptiness below us, which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."

As a parent... I will propose a right way, as the only way.

-JH

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