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Author-ized L.J.
@ljwrites@writeout.ink  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

This part of #KahlilGibran's On Children is relevant to non-parents as well, or people worried about "kids today" in general:

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

#poetry

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Author-ized L.J.
@ljwrites@writeout.ink replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

"But L.J., we thought 'the house of tomorrow' the children dwell in meant the kids would make a better world than we did and fix the world we broke, not be video-game-addicted, deep-fake-making, doing-homework-with-AI slacker weirdos who dislike us or laugh at us!"

Oh ho ho, sorry to burst your progressive fantasy about constant improvement and enlightenment, and also it is not children's jobs to clean up our messes ew. How about if this passage means not that children will be better versions of us according to our notions of good and bad, but that literally the world they will live in and shape is a place we cannot imagine, "not even in [our] dreams." That the world as we know it is changing and whether we like that or not is irrelevant, and we need to stop guilting, blaming, and demonizing actual kids for those changes?

Like there's nothing wrong or shameful about being afraid of where the world is going, but if there's work you'd like to see done do it your damned self and let the kids live

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Jess Mahler
@JessMahler@indiepocalypse.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

@ljwrites Thank you for sharing. I love The Prophet and it's been too long since I read it. Good reminder to pull it out again.

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Author-ized L.J.
@ljwrites@writeout.ink replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

@JessMahler I only love The Prophet a normal amount, only enough to put a passage from On Marriage in my wedding invite, no biggie blobcat_giggle

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