Sketchy

October is drawing to an end in a couple of days. What have I learned so far? I learned that I am terrified of the cold, but fortunately discovered a route to get home from school that cuts down the time to just over an hour. I learned that if you suck at school, you're going to suck at school even if you study something you like. I learned that living with a family that isn't my own can be quite the challenge. I've learned that I am always hungry. Wait, I already knew that.

Anyways, really sketchy for me to be talking about this right now especially given my current state of life. And it's to no surprised that it's probably sprouted from my current situation. But I am developing some views on how families should be run - being very vague here. That probably includes parenting, how you manage a household, how you are to your spouse, etc. I am not one to say that I am someone who is "all-knowing" about any of this, but maybe it's because I am maturing in this aspect. L-O-L did I just say that I'm maturing? Even though I've never really thought about it, it's always been in the back of my mind once in a while where I think about how I'd be like if I get to be a dad. I know that that is thinking WAY ahead of myself because I haven't even done step one yet. But there's always the possibility of it happening, and I am always curious of how I'd do.

In the perfect world, if I can manage to be a fraction of what my parents are, I am probably pretty satisfied. I think that my parents are the perfect model parents for just about any new couples. However, I can't discount the fact that I also think there are some incredible parents that I know. The very first question I have for parents is this: how different are you in front of your kid(s) than your peers? You're not going to be the same person in the two situations; if you are, I feel for you. But the question is more of how big of a difference in character is there? I know that parents always want the best for their kids, so they're going to try to "feed" them the best that they have. This means that you probably do your best to hide your imperfections in front of your kids so they don't feed off of your flaws. Although this isn't a bad thing, how far are you willing to go? When does the whole quote of "do as I say, not as I do" come in? Everyone is a hypocrite to some extend in their own way, but where is the line that you have to draw?

I've been learning about different types of spiritualities this semester, and we touched on one that's called "classical spirituality". It's hard to have one solid definition of this term, but it's easily understandable. It is basically "see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil" to its most literal-ness. You won't sit or have a bar stool because it's a "bar" stool; in bars they do bad things, so you can't have any of that. Basically, anything that has even the slightest hint of potential evil is something you have to stay away from. It's a little extreme, I know, but I have witnessed it - maybe not to its full potential, but the general idea. The parents would almost completely indoctrinate the kids into nothing but God and Jesus, and the whole 9 yards. Yes, everything. Indoctrinate is a strong word, and I mean every bit of what the word is. From the posters and decorations on your dining room wall, to the music you listen to, to the TV shows you watch, to the vocabulary that you're allowed to have, to the clothes that you wear, to the activities that you do, it all has to be free from evil. Again, this is why it's so sketchy to be talking about. Because even if I'm in a completely different situation (living alone, or on res, or something else), the subject itself is already sketchy. Is this how you would treat your kids?

If you knew people like this, what would your opinion be? Now, if you take my character and who I am into play, how does that work? Like I said, there isn't really anything that is flat out wrong about living a classically spirited life, but my question is this: will you ever peak outside of your box to realize that there is a world that you live in? The whole idea of it seems kind of surreal. As a bit of a third party looking in, it almost seems as if the attitude is that they're too good for this place. Of course, this is getting rather specific to the particular people, but it seems that way. Try to picture if there is a king or queen that asked for some food. But when they see that there is a piece of meat that is a little under cooked, they won't even look at it. They have to have everything done one way, and one way only, and don't even realize that the only way you get to the imperfections of this world is by diving into it and not kind of picking at it with your thumb and index while you squint one eye and sitting on the edge of your seat ready to run away if something happened.

I don't know. I'm not even sure how I went from parenting to this. I think I'm more ranting than anything right now. I guess I've just been caught up in what some of the results would be depending on the way you teach your kids. Believe me, there are some horribly undisciplined kids or kids not disciplined properly, and they can be very close to over disciplined kids too. I know. I see it pretty frequently. But with the way the society is now, parents probably can't even look at their kids funny without their kids wanting to sue them. Again, insert me into the picture. Given the environment and circumstances, this is why I think I'm such a bad influence right now. I have knives, I do magic, I play guitar, I watch hockey, I watch videos on youtube, I listen to music with swears, I am a fan of Michael Jackson's Thriller video.. Oh noes, I'm trouble! In the end though, I think that this is going to be my job: dealing with so many different stories and views and all that fun stuff by taking both the classical and the "post-modern" era and bringing it all together.

I guess I just don't really like where this world is going and what it's trying to teach people. Like this one. If you tell your kids that Halloween is bad because it's the "devil's day", then why do you tell your kids that Santa is going to jump down the chimney and give you presents on Christmas?

/endrant.