Don't Believe


Dear Eugene,

How far do you want your kids to question your suggestions?

Suggestions about what life is, how it should be lived, learn this to earn that, sow this to reap that, reject this to avoid that, accept this to be accepted for that...

The assumption is, bad as sometimes things might seem, there is hope and real satisfaction to be found in the status quo, the way the world as is.

One might want to be a change agent to dissect, to dispute, or to even disturb the way things are, but the common language must first be learned for one to at least survive and maybe thrive, to exchange genuine smiles with friends and passersby, to find one's place on planet earth without the need to justify one's coordinates all over again every new morning.  One must learn ABC before questioning why B must follow A and C should always be at the third place.

We all know what happens when immature, impressionable minds start to question the order of things.  They can be easily recruited and quickly radicalized by the Order itself.  The C that toppled A knows too its alphabet, the language that must be used and manipulated to serve its ambition and preserve the current ordering.

A lot of money, a colleague said to me yesterday, to put a kid through school.  His kid's in grad school.

Yes.  So much hassle, headache, heartbreak, only for our kids to finally arrive at what they should know by now already: that their daddy and mommy have already used up the planet and now there is no more left for them, no hope in sight, nothing to believe in.  Everybody gets a grenade minus a pin for Christmas.

But for now, this Christmas, we are proud parents still, showering our little up-and-comers with good laughs, warm hugs, and meant kindness.  We are suggesting to the world in all sincerity that things are under control, the controllers know what they are doing, and after all God controls everything so that we can stop worrying and throw away all cynicism and apprehension if only for one day.  Just believe.

The wise men walked through desert to seek Jesus, and were given a new life in their dying of thirst, a new language to their withering tongues, every step on the Way a resounding protest.

Yours, Alex

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