The Future: A race between education and disaster

Some good quotes I came across recently:

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." Abraham Lincoln

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." Winston Churchill

"One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them." Thomas Sowell

What do you think?

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Abraham Lincoln was the first person diagnosed with the condition that I and my daughter have been diagnosed with - "Marfan Syndrome" - or "lego bricks" as K and I call it. The lego bricks name comes from oh maybe 6 years ago now where I explained to K (with lego bricks) that the bodies of humans were a result of smaller things called genes. She understood the concept of building a living creature from small things, I placed a yellow lego brick in the middle of a red lego brick person and said that yellow brick makes us special. Ever since then she has referred to her height/slimness etc as being caused by lego bricks. Even though I have explained that the gene in question is on the long arm of chromosome 15 :)

This may be a surprise to some, but I can categorically say that it is a relief for a child to know that such differences are caused by something beyond their control. As a child I thought it was my fault, and that if I only tried harder, ate more, exercised more, then I would have a body that was more towards the average.

Many people don't understand this, K's mother never understood it thinking that it is much better to hide such information from children, but these people are wrong.

K and I could do much worse than to live as Lincoln did.

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Treating others kindly, but through gritted teeth of seething resentment, isn't what Jesus was getting at ...

This is an interesting point. That seething resentment is exactly how a child feels as it is taught to "treat others as it wishes to be treated" - and this is to be expected. The Golden Rule goes against the natural propensity of a race borne out of natural selection which wants to get one up on it's fellow man. The Golden Rule needs to be taught to us when we are young and it's a painful lesson to learn. Even when I do try to follow the Golden Rule I must keep my eyes open for people like whom Sowell refers to above, and on the whole avoid them. I cannot change them, I can only change myself. By avoiding them I don't make enemies, but then Churchill would say I am not standing up for something. But some things are more equal than others in the "worth standing up for" stakes - wouldn't you agree?

Maybe I would say:

"Avoid those battles you can and join with determination to win those battles you cannot" ?

Is this too confrontational? Now the question arises of who decides which battles can be avoided?