a fantastical and curious place, part two

part one

Just after I interviewed the student discussed in the previous post, I interviewed another student. Football was his most important activity; he felt that he really learned a lot from it - it's made him more of a man, and taught him to persevere through the hardest times, like when you're down five points and you have to pull it together and win the game. He later discussed his interest in business; while he's got no specific interest in it (i.e. not in accounting or marketing or w/e), he always saw himself in that career, just as others dream of being firefighters or police officers. He can just see himself in a corner office with a view of a big city. "You know," he said, "Donald Trump, with the suits, and he works with people at big tables..."

It struck me, right then and there, that this kid had never seen hard times, that he really knew very little about life. So it's strange - while awful things had happened to the previous student, they had really became a better person, a more reflective person, a stronger person, for it. This student had had nothing bad happen to him - had led an idyllic life - and turned out much worse. So who really had good fortune, and who bad?

(this is close to a certain sort of theodicy)

Of course, it is true that other people, with different characters, might have been totally destroyed by watching their father's suicide. It could have been an awful thing. But, it seems that, in the end, it wasn't.

This is why, when people ask me what I think of my past, whether I wish it were different, I always tell them that I would never wish to change the past. Learn from it, yes - change it, no. Too much has happened, has become part of me, and part of other people - and how could I take that from anyone?