In a world going wrong..

A sixteen-year old is pregnant, and is all over the news- How will you explain this to your children? Will her wacko elder sister be a good influence on the child (which presses the question- the 16 year old child, or the 16 year old's child?)

A fourteen year old girl kills her seven year old sister in a "game" mimicking Mortal Kombat moves. Her slightly older boyfriend claims to be uninvolved, since he was "drinking and watching a movie downstairs".

India's first school shooting- Whoopee.

The news about kids gone bad has been coming in in a steady stream over the past week- It makes me glad I am not a child, old enough to be untroubled by these influences. No matter how good an upbringing one has, the world creeps into a child's mind, and if that mind is innocent and inquisitive, the questions it asks are only more hard-hitting, and the answers more elusive.

So I'm spending this weekend with a five year-old. She chases her elder brother around, and hates being called a "girl" - someone who is less capable of things than he is. She's less concerned with femininity and body image, and more with being seen as an equal by her big brother. She's creative enough to make a snowman with an inch of rapidly melting snow, and not afraid to question her father's authority when he sides with her nanny.
She asks questions- Why is that man always inside his house? Why do I have to fit in with my first grade class and pretend to be unable to read? Why can't I stay home and study like you did?

She is wise and innocent, daring and funny and silly, and the kind of child I ache to meet once more. She does not question the absence of her mother, and trusts her elder brother when she follows him into a neighbour's yard in the middle of the night. Knows he will not hit her or rape her, knows that she can listen to him and things will be fine, mostly.

A rare find- Even the most well-brought up kids today lack that complete innocence and freedom of thought. Street-smart, confident, computer-savvy. But where did the innocence go? Who is telling these children that courage is not having a gun in your hand, but knowing when to use it? That teenage sex is not acceptable unless it is a conscious choice and not peer pressure?

That peer pressure is not a substitute for a brain and a conscience.

Not knowing the answers to those, I chose to spend time with a child who still has those traits. So what if she's a fictional eight-year old who lived in Alabama decades ago? Scout Finch is still far better company than most children (and adults) I've read about lately.

Nothing ventured..

More often than not, we "land up" in bad situations- not a choice, but a circumstance.
I didn't ask for this to happen to me.
I don't deserve this.
Life sucks- I hate grad school.
What did I ever do wrong that things had to come to this point?
How much longer must I put up with this before things go back to being normal again?
This is depressing.

After a not-so-great day, I stumbled across this guy- the Coconuter-

http://coconuter.blogspot.com/2004/12/introduction-about.html

To take your life in your hands and toss it to the winds, out of your own choice, your own free will- Immensely courageous, though some might (and probably did) say it's ridiculous. He probably gets more hits off Blogs of Note, but David the Coconuter definitely deserves more than a passing glance.

And another person, in some ways just as courageous-

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2005-01-24-robbery-call_x.htm

Both of them left me tonight with the same questions-

What was he thinking?
What pushed him to walk away from his life/ make that phone call?
Did he not know he would need money for his wife and child?/ Did he not know he would get caught?
What did he think was going to happen when he got there/ when he asked her out?

What keeps you going, when life sucks, and you hate grad school? And whatever it is-is it strong enough as the urges of these two men- for a date, for a meaningful life?

Debate

If you push me too far into my irritation, I will usually land up too far from whatever insight you are hoping to provide me.

The two of us stand facing each other, and we have come from diametrically opposite directions to this crossroads. If you push me so far back along the road I walked all this while, how am I to see the road you want me to take ahead?

I can only look so far beyond my own feet, so don't drag me to your point of view. I am blind there. I cannot stand in your shoes and see what you see.

They are your shoes, they have walked different roads to come to this point where we stand together. The dust on them is from different memories, different impulses. My heart and mind cannot respond to them.

So speak to me from here, from now. From what we share, what we know together. And maybe we can both walk a few steps forward in the same direction- In our own shoes, you understand, but just for this one understanding, we can share the same path.

And for a few years, we could maybe share this- And someday years from now we will speak from the same place, and share a common point of view.