The Past Meets the Future

Have you noticed how you've sadly turned into your father?
In a way.

I say however that what you're expressing with such an emotionally charged determination has been felt without a doubt by every generation. I'm 35 and I'm still able to hear my father preaching about the "correct" way to live; the reason I'm still able to hear my father's words is because I'm using exactly the same pitch when I talk to my own children now. You see, every generation suspects that everything dear to them is being replaced by some monstrous, foreign culture and set of values... they're usually right. Do you feel your descendants should in any way cling to the old ways? why? because it's your way?

Someone once told me that one should pay special atention to the music one listens to during adolescence, "for that's the music one will be listening to for the rest of our lives". when I'm driving by myself; usually the only time I'm "allowed" to listen to my own music, I usually remember this and laugh out loud like a moronic hyena.

Nothing beats Bon Jovi... :wink:

selfruled

My complaint is not a generational one. My generation and my children's generation are beyond reaching; my message is directed at the new generation because I think that one must get on the right track somewhere in the twenties or they won't make it. All generations past are not a good role model. I am speaking of a revolution in thinking and learning.

Interesting response my friend.

Would you mind discussing your concept of "right track"? Don't get me wrong please; my first words in your thread were "in a way", which means there's plenty here I share with you; I'm just a bit concerned about good intentions turning into a "my way is the way" kind of situation...

Selfruled

I think that the standard track taken by past generations is that at the end of schooling we pack our yearbook and intellect into a trunk in the attic. In doing so our intellectual curiosity dries up and blows away for lack of activity.

The right track is to engage our intellect continually and perhaps sparingly during the twenty years following schooling. I say sparingly because we have many heavy responsibilities of family and career that comes first during this twenty year period. However we all have time for what is important and ?'keeping curiosity alive' during this period is essential.

If we reach mid-life with an intact curiosity we can focus more time upon being a responsible citizen. A responsible citizen in a liberal democracy has an intellect actively engaged in becoming an intellectual. If we are an intellectual we will be prepared to actively guide our national public policy.

I am a retired engineer with some formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge.

I would like to suggest that the reader consider the desirability of developing self-learning as a hobby. One might think of this as a 'second wind'. Like the marathoner developing a new source of energy and excitement at mid-race the self-learner undertakes a second-stage journey in life by creating a new worldview through an aroused curiosity question for a deeper understanding of reality.

Quote: "All men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm: first by what they do, then by what they make of what they do. The condition of guilt, a sense of one's own guilt, denotes a kind of second chance. Men are, as if by a kind of grace, given a chance to repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead."
"Coming to Terms with Vietnam," by Peter Marin, Harpers, Dec. 1980.