Now I'm a certain age, I can see things for what they really are and feel I'm able to talk, with experience, about life, death, success, failure, love, hate, fact, fiction, hope, fear, rise and fall. I can talk about finding a niche in life, where we belong, opportunism, running away, sticking with things, being true to yourself, knowing what's inside your heart, what's inside your head, how to make a success of life and how to totally fuck it up. I can talk about grace, emptiness, hardship, ecstasy, relationships, notoriety, solitude, secrets, what's forbidden and what's allowed. I know about compromise, being used, using people, sex, secrets, beauty, ugliness, selfishness, control, freedom and religion.I'm not religious at all, but I've always found this prayer very useful:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I've never found this prayer useful at all:
Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou among women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary
Mother of God
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death
I've seen life's highs and lows and feel able to give advice, based not on intuition, but on facts. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, I'd rather be an innocent child seeking advice than a middle aged man, giving it. I suppose we all come to this realisation when we're in our middle years, right!?
Now here's the rub: when I was sixteen, I neither sought nor took advice from older people - so what sixteen year old is either going to listen to me or seek my advice? Experience of life may teach you many things, but the only person to learn by these successes and mistakes is you! The paradox, then, is that by the time you've learnt how to do it, it's too late. When you know how to live life, you've either done it, or it's over.
Life is pointless.
1 comment:
I have never ever been religious. Never been to church except for someone to be christened, married or buried. The only time I've said the Lords Prayer was in school. Never read the Bible. I just don't believe.
Now, when Bethany was in hospital, I turned to "god". With every fibre of my being I figured it was worth a shot. I spent a week praying, wishing, willing everything to be OK, but Bethany didn't make it.
God? No such thing. Prayer does bugger all, and if there IS a god, well, he's a spoiled little kid that does what he likes without care.
Sorry about the tangent there :)
As they say, hindesight is 20/20. Kids don't listen to what adults have to say, but is it better to tell someone "touching fire burns" or is the lesson better learned by being burnt?
"Don't do X or Y will happen" doesn't appeal to kids. They don't see what could happen, but you can bet most of the time, the advice you give is because you have been there and done that.
As one of my teachers used to say (who hated kids above all else in his life, go figure) "Life is a terminal sexually transmitted disease".
Cheerful chap.
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