A letter to my daughter

in life •  7 years ago 

Imagine a river flowing, its smoothness highlighting the clarity of the water. Suddenly a huge boulder plummets in mid-stream churning the muck and sand from the turbulence the water now feels. This boulder changes the way the river flow; eroding its banks; piling up debris and having wide ranging effects downstream.

I'm not talking about a river, I am talking about life. Many people experience that boulder, whether it is due to war or an accident - things happen which affects generations of people. In my particular case that boulder was the death of my sister Nancy. If nothing else it weakened my ability to trust people by enhancing my acknowledgement that people can only hurt you. That is the turbulence in my life and that turbulence has influenced your life as well. I cannot say if that is even the first event as my responses might have been shaped by "boulders" in earlier generations.

We are travellers. It is possible that this is a survival instinct to escape from impossible situations (hunger, strife). Travellers are psychopaths or sociopaths or both. What sane person leaves the people they love or are closest to - preferring the company of strangers or solitude. The problem is that travellers tend to encounter other travellers who are also psychopaths or sociopaths. When Sara first went to school, she fell in love with a person. I cautioned her that the person was from a different culture just as I have cautioned you. People are the same all over. Cultures are killers though. I recently heard about a country where one religious leader says that all men must wear beards. This isn't because it is written in their belief book, but because he thinks men without beards appear to be women. What is worse is the second most influential political leader thinks that women shouldn't laugh in public. Cultural norms are behaviour patterns which people tend to fall into. My exposure to men from South America is limited so I cannot intelligently talk about their social norms. That is why I asked you to refer to others in that type of discussion. I bring this up because you seem to have a low opinion of Australian men. In other words you don't like the effect their culture has on you. So why are you in Australia?

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